39 thoughts on “The Fossil Record”

  1. “One such essential truth, I think, is that human beings are themselves an extraordinary evolutionary event. We’re an explosive force on the planet. Of all the twists and turns of evolution, all the radiations, all the convergences and divergences, there has been just the one creature that developed the technological ability to change the planet itself. And that creature chose to do so.”

    Are you endorsing “Anthropogenic Climate Change ” here?

          1. Because beavers build dams and bees plant forests. Nothing man has done from the Rift Valley until the current day has had even a tenth of an effect upon the world as a planet as the humble microbes responsible for the Great Oxygenation Event. Frankly, the linked writer’s perspective is addlepated secular homocentrism, a species of intentionalism not particularly distinct from that of the religiously-motivated creationists. Well, if you consider that sect of scientism obsessed with CAGW to be secular as such, I suppose…

  2. I am a creationist, I believe there were dinosaurs, and the earth is old, and evolution happens. I also believe in the scientific method.
    How can that be? Well nowhere does it say how long a day is when referring to the the 7 days. Nowhere does it say the creatures God created can’t evolve and change.
    I am a creationist…and I understand

    1. I too am a creationist and share your beliefs about dinosaurs and the age of the earth. I do struggle with evolution, however, because of Genesis 1:24-25 (KJV) “And God said, Let the earth bring forth the living creature after his kind, cattle, and creeping thing, and beast of the earth after his kind: and it was so. And God made the beast of the earth after his kind, and cattle after their kind, and every thing that creepeth upon the earth after his kind: and God saw that it was good.”

      This translation sure looks like it says that each species gives birth to its own species, which I am told is an argument against evolution. However, that is the English translation of something written in Hebrew, and I have definitely observed that English Bible translations often paraphrase the original Hebrew, Greek, and Aramaic poorly; we now have genetically modified grains, and I was reading today about combining DNA from three or more people to produce children without certain genetic defects. So there is a TON of stuff I have to read to even scratch the surface on the subject. If there is something out there that is a good jumping off point for DNA and evolution, please point me in that direction.

      I do plan to examine this further, after I wrap up my study that is rapidly dismantling the stuff I was taught as a kid about the Rapture.

      1. And even in Biblical times people were selectively breeding both plants and animals, trying to improve desirable traits and breed out undesirable ones.

      1. For someone who is wrong so often and engages in your own magical thinking, you are awfully quick with judgement.

      2. I am of the opinion its up to each of us to find our beliefs. I went from atheist evolutionist to creationist by reading and discovering on my own. I am not going to force my beliefs on anyone, but if you ask I will happily discuss.

    3. Since you refer to “7 days”, I assume you’re using the Bible as a source for your beliefs.
      Do you think the first 30 lines of this are accurate?
      http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Genesis+1

      One difficulty with simply saying “the days were longer” is that the bible also lays out the order of events.
      So, for example, it claims that Earth was created before light . It claims that that the sun, the moon, and the stars were created later still, on the fourth day, which seems problematic regardless of how long a day is. It claims that trees with fruit and seeds existed on land before there was life in the sea. And so on. If you read the text of Genesis closely, you’ll find other peculiar claims as well, but I’m not sure how closely you’re reading Genesis, although your reference to “7 days” makes me think it is closely enough to raise a lot of issues.

      1. read that first part…the earth was formless, meaning no form no planet. I see it as earth being matter. But hey thats just me…If you see it different that’s you. The order to me makes sense

        1. I like the idea that the “earth” is matter. So, in your interpretation, what was happening on the second and third days?

      2. Bob, you might want to check out this link:

        http://www.ancient-hebrew.org/23_genesis_1.html

        It explains that a lot of the Old Testament, including the account in Genesis, was written in the Hebrew poetic form called parallelism. So not only does a translation to English sometimes fail to capture the essence of what the Hebrew text means, the translation to English also fails to reflect the poetic style used. Pretty interesting stuff.

        1. That was interesting. Thanks.

          Since the author didn’t include any cites or references, I looked for some on my own by typing the following words, without quotes, into google:
          — hebrew parallelism poetry genesis —
          I was amused to find that the theory of Genesis as parallel poetry is fervently rejected by quite a few people! The idea really gets people worked up!

      3. First, bear in mind that you’re reading an English translation of something written in Hebrew which is laden with metaphor; in many ways the original is akin to poetry. Also, the various English translations differ. In the version I remember best, verse 2 said “chaos and void” rather than “formless and empty”.

        I interpret verse 1 as either a summary of what follows and/or the moment of the Big Bang. Verse 2 is the superdense state, before the universe was transparent enough for light to transmit. Verses 3 and 4 describe this transition. I interpret the word “day” in verses 5, 8, 13, 19, 23, and 31 to refer to various epochs in the universe between the big bang and the present.

        Verses 6 through 8: If I were trying to describe the splitting of the forces of gravity, electromagnetism, the strong nuclear force and the weak nuclear force into separate fields to someone 5000 years ago without using any math, what metaphor would be more appropriate than “separating waters from waters”? I can’t come up with one.

        Verses 9 through 13 describe the formation of the planets in a star system before the star itself ignites and the solar wind clears the nebula making other stars become visible in verses 14 to 19.

        The only problem so far is that plant life starts on the land before the star ignites. However, the plant life does predate the animal life.

        In verses 20 to 23 we see animal life beginning in the ocean and progressing to birds. Dinosaurs were proto-birds.

        Verses 24 to 31 start with the introduction of animals and ends with the most recent addition, man.

        This was all written 5000 years ago and yet the order of events lines up pretty well with current theories of cosmology, planetary formation, and evolution. There is no contradiction between believing in God and also in Science.

    4. Why the hebrew creation story? They were not living in a vacumn. There were cultures with writing that predate them by 1000 years. Why not their creation stories? A lot of the hebrew creation elements we can see in writings that predate theirs? A lot of these creation myths circulated the middle east in many shapes and sizes. The first eleven chapters in genesis you can find in a lot of other cultures that predate the hebrews. So it makes me wonder. IF you have a line of writings, why not use the oldest where the original ideas came from? Sumerian? Akkadian? et cetera…. why is it always only the hebrew creation story that holds any weight?

      “Ziusudra (also Zi-ud-sura and Zin-Suddu; Hellenized Xisuthros: “found long life” or “life of long days”) of Shuruppak is listed in the WB-62 Sumerian king list recension as the last king of Sumer prior to the deluge. He is subsequently recorded as the hero of the Sumerian flood epic. He is also mentioned in other ancient literature, including The Death of Gilgamesh[1] and The Poem of Early Rulers,[2] and a late version of The Instructions of Shuruppak[3] refers to Ziusudra.[4] Akkadian Atrahasis (“extremely wise”) and Utnapishtim (“he found life”), as well as biblical Noah (“rest”) are similar heroes of flood legends of the ancient Near East.

      Although each version of the flood myth has distinctive story elements, there are numerous story elements that are common to two, three, or four versions. The earliest version of the flood myth is preserved fragmentarily in the Eridu Genesis, written in Sumerian cuneiform and dating to the 17th century BC, during the 1st Dynasty of Babylon when the language of writing and administration was still Sumerian. Strong parallels are notable with other Near Eastern flood legends, such as the biblical account of Noah.”

      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ziusudra

      1. I believe the short answer to the question of “Why the Hebrew creation story?” is, “The Romans.” The longer answer, of course, involves the word “Crusade”, which I will leave out of this conversation based on the vitriol that came out as a result of the last time that word was discussed.

  3. Humans are imperfect creatures. The fossil record not having a box record is a good thing because our understanding of it is constantly changing. Science is wrong all the time and yet people don’t say that because x theory about the evolution and expansion of humans across the planet was wrong that the entire field or science as a whole is invalid. However, many people do say that if a religion is wrong on any one thing it invalidates their entire belief system on how to live a good life and treat other people. It is a BS argument.

    Religion changes slower over longer periods of time. This is also a good thing. Imagine if theological doctrine changed with the same frequency and whims as nutrition.

    IMO, religions should get the same chance to change and evolve over time as any other human institution.

    Many Christians believe in creation and in evolution. Shocking… And many are rather open about not knowing everything with certainty. Rather like people who don’t believe in a religion but do believe in evolution can sometimes admit that they don’t know with any certainty how our history played out more than ten thousand years ago.

    People also need to keep in mind that the state of our society today is built upon the collective passage of knowledge from one generation to the next and that left to their own devices, few if anyone alive today is capable of coming up with evolution as an idea much less the evidence to back it up. You are not inherently “better” than the humans who lived before the dawn of recorded history.

    1. “Science is wrong all the time and yet people don’t say that because x theory about the evolution and expansion of humans across the planet was wrong that the entire field or science as a whole is invalid”

      I don’t know, Rand likes calling Mann an Academic Fraud and people working on climate change
      all sorts of names.

      1. This sort of non-sequitur is usually referred to as “trolling”, much like the other post around this same time last night on this same thread. Name calling wasn’t even brought up in wodun’s post.

        Bullying and trolling have rarely occurred on this blog, and I like to think that it’s because most of the people who read and post here are reasonable humans. But I have to believe that it’s also a rare occurrence due to the ability of the blog’s owner to ban those who abuse the privilege of posting in the comments.

  4. I’m a giant zero, neither creationist, designist, agnostic nor atheist, but I do have a question: How come the best scientific explanation for the birth of our universe (big-bang) is “shit happens”? Corollary question: if “shit happens” over & over guess that would be eternity? I cannot intellectually accept “eternity”, which is why I think I remain at zero.
    BTW, regarding the “big-bang” I know there’s lotsa theories for the second pico-second, but nothing for what preceded/allowed it.

    2. I didn’t read the link, but my notion about space and time being twisted together, combined with quantum probabilities, might leave the room that in some small part of nowhere, where time didn’t exist, eventually something big and incredibly improbable could happen, and did. Given an infinite amount of time (a femtosecond would do because time had no measure), that something was inevitable, or perhaps there is a nearly infinite number of other nowheres where nothing happened, and we’re back to the problem of the only existing observer struggling to understand the odds that were against him, while the fact that he’s observing says that whatever the odds, he beat them or he wouldn’t be around to ask the question.

      I’d go deeper into the physics and philosophy of it, but the Sport Illustrated Swimsuit Edition just came out and I’m busing calculating the probabilities of various particle interactions.

    3. I think the closest we will ever come to a grand unified theory of everything is Murphy’s Law. That would mean the big bang is more like the big oops.

  5. I’m one of those guys that believes in Panspermia. So I’m an evolutionist. Even if there was no Panspermia. Even if everything evolved from primordial ‘chaos’ it doesn’t mean there isn’t a Creator. It just means if there is one he’s smarter then we gave him credit for.

  7. I’m surprised no one else had the same idea I did when I saw the headline. “The Stones have put out a new album?”

  8. There is no doubt whatsoever that anthropogenic climate change is a fact. (Wait a minute before suffering apoplexy!) Also many other major changes, such as degree of forestation in many areas of the world.

    Climate change? No, I don’t mean change caused by burning fossil fuels. What I mean there is the large change in the climate of specific areas such as the margins of the Sahara, caused by humankind’s habit of keeping domestic animals and, in turn, those animals’ habit of overgrazing. This has contributed greatly to desertification in the margins of the Sahara.

    Increased erosion in many areas is also a consequence of our habit of felling trees in order to grow crops. The most recent example of this is the rapid deforestation of the Amazon basin, but many upland areas where humans have been dominant for longer have the same problem.

    1. “There is no doubt whatsoever that anthropogenic climate change is a fact.”

      Well, lets see if Rand stays to task and calls you names.

      1. If you had taken the time to read, comprehend, and digest the remainder of Fletcher’s post, rather than pick and choose what to respond to after only the first sentence, you may not understand that Rand would have no names to call Mr. Christian (and I can only imagine the grief any female siblings of his would have received as a result of Night Ranger’s efforts, but I digress).

        Now, if you HAD read and comprehended Fletcher’s entire post, then your post is a classic “trolling” or “flame-bait”, which, IMHO, should be grounds for banning from this comment section.

        It’s not my blog, though.

  9. Sorry, I forgot something. Genesis has worse problems than the first few chapters, which can easily be explained as allegory and/or intended for an audience with less knowledge of the natural world (in some respects!) than we have. The story of the Flood is far worse, if taken literally. Taken literally, it is utter and complete nonsense for so many reasons that I’m not even going to try to enumerate them. But just for starters, how is it that there any land plants (at all!) given that all of them would have been submerged under a minimum of a mile of salt water for over a month? And for most of them, it would have been four or five miles. (Everest is 29,000 feet high, or a hair under 5.5 miles. Genesis 7:19: “And the waters prevailed so mightily on the earth that all the high mountains under the whole heaven were covered.”)

    1. Good question. Actually, I believe the length of time that Noah and his family were inside the ark was a little over a year. They were afloat for 150 days, then the story states “and on the seventeenth day of the seventh month the ark came to rest on the mountains of Ararat.”

      Some interesting coincidences with that particular date: it’s the same date that Israel escaped Egypt through the Red Sea following the passover, as well as the same date of Jesus’ resurrection.

      1. Yup. Although one unknown variable is the length of time the Ark was floating around while the rain was still coming down, which is why I was conservative about how long the water was at static level.

        One more problem: Where did all that water (probably about twice as much water as is currently in Earth’s oceans) go?

        Interestingly enough, I saw a TV programme recently which had a plausible mechanism (other than “God waves his immaterial hand”, that is) for a Noachic-style flood – although it would rain for hundreds of years rather than 40 days. Basically, it involves one of the larger objects from the Kuiper Belt being perturbed into an Earth-crossing orbit and crashing into the Moon; subsequently, this would create an ice ring which would gradually deorbit and the water from the 1000-km object would have to end up somewhere. We’d have a hell of a rain of meteors for quite some time as well, though the programme didn’t go into that.

        However, in that hugely unlikely scenario the water doesn’t just go away afterwards.

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