However much is wrong with Darwinism it is still the one that is best able to explain all the data we have right now, even if it is forensics.

Right now to most students ID is just a hype, not some concrete scientific theory, and this is in part caused by the unwillingness in letting it be taught. If right now ID were introduced without a lot of thought in how to present it, it might destroy or seriously weaken our believes that darwinism is correct.

In this case, it is all or nothing. ID should be introduced as either a theory on the same level as the accepeted one, with as much scientific data to back it up, and actual examples, in short, it should be developed into a whole curriculum, whereby I mean for example you assume that it is correct and teach from there.

Otherwise, it shouldn’t be taught at all.

“veritable kaleidoscope of changes, a parade of creatures smeared like a rainbow blur of color from bacteria to human”

One could argue that the events that cause fossilization are not random, so as not to give a random sampling of fossils over time. This could explain the grouping effect, so to say. But if this arguement were used then they would also have to argue that the cause of fossilization happens at certain times in history and not other times. And they would hold the burden of explaining why fossilization happens this way. This is not my argument. I tend more to agree with you, just giving some food for thought that one could argue this stance to explain why we dont see more intermeadiate fossils

In response to this statement from you …

As you yourself note, intelligent design is not science, as it either posits a a bigger gap than evolution (by postulating a designer) or requires a supernatural element, and of course, there is no evidence for intelligent design.

… I’ve rewritten a line in my post, which now reads:

Of course Darwinism isn’t scientific either, nor is any attempt to explain the past. Are past events observable? Are they reproducible? No. We may use scientific tools in exploring what happened in the past, but the endeavor itself falls in the realm of forensics — not science.

By that account, yes, I would say Intelligent Design isn’t science, in the same way that Darwinism isn’t science. Both use scientific tools in attempting to explain what occurred in the past. ID scientists aren’t just sitting around arguing that Darwinism has holes that must be filled by God — they’re actually using empirical methods from other fields (particularly SETI) to identify telltale features of deliberate design in nature. From Dembski’s Intelligent Design:

To say intelligent causes are empirically detectable is to say there exist well-defined methods that, based on observable features of the world, can reliably distinguish intelligent causes from undirected natural causes. Many special sciences have already developed such methods for drawing this distinction—notably forensic science, cryptography, archeology, and the search for extraterrestrial intelligence (SETI). Essential to all these methods is the ability to eliminate chance and necessity.

If the methods used by ID are the same used by SETI, why should the conclusions be automatically thrown out based on an a priori resolve against the possibility of a Designer? This smacks of dogmatism rather than scientific challenge. Conclusions that are bunk should be easy enough to discredit scientifically. If ID scientists proclaimed that the sun god Apollo lives in our system’s star, a review of their work would be enough to demonstrate their error in finding evidence of intelligence in solar radiation.

But even if there were no fossil record at all, studying modern life forms and comparing genomes alone provide overwhelming evidence for evolution. We are fortunate that some organisms fossilize; this allows for further confirmation as well as illuminating more precisely the paths evolution has taken.

This argument rides on an a priori commitment to Darwinism. I could just as easily argue that comparing genomes provides overwhelming evidence for Intelligent Design, as they demonstrate a unique signature, a single “language” spoken by one Designer in creating all life forms.

Compare my writing to that of Mark Twain. If my total vocabulary usage is 96% similar to his, you could conclude that my writing evolved from his. Then if you compared my writing to K-Fed and found only a 50% similarity, you could conclude that my writing and K-Fed’s are further apart on the evolutionary tree. The problem is that writing doesn’t evolve. My writing is mine — it emerges from my skull alone. While the numbers may suggest influences of language and culture, they just as easily confound real understanding by indicating false connections across centuries.

From this perspective it would make just as much sense to explain how the Big Bang caused the constellations to form. Just because we see a Gemini and an Orion, that doesn’t mean astrological relationships between those stars really exist, or that they played a role in each other’s formation.

Your understanding of the fossil record is flawed. Fossilization, of course, is an extremely rare event, and we are quite lucky that organisms are fossilized at all. … Your question about transitional species seems odd—what exactly do you suppose such a fossil would look like? There is no organism “in flux,” evolving towards a future perfect animal. Species were always adapted to fit the niche at the time, and only in retrospect do we see patterns. Whenever we find a new fossil that falls within a previous gap, naturally, there are two new, smaller gaps formed.

Funny, I would say it’s your understanding of the fossil record that is flawed, perhaps because you’ve never thought to question what we see there. The fact that fossilization is rare is irrelevant — no matter how often the statistical sampling is taken, if Darwinism were true we would see a fossil pattern entirely unlike the one that exists.

You say “there is no organism ‘in flux’”, but this is precisely wrong — all organisms are in flux. I never argued that evolution suggests the movement toward “a future perfect animal,” yet you seem to believe that species reach developmental plateaus. “Species were always adapted to fit the niche at the time” — adapted in the past tense? Not according to Darwin, who insisted that all species are at all times adapting, present tense, to their environments. The only constant is change. This is true considering natural selection pressures, and even more true considering genetic mutations.

So what we should see, every time we dig up another fossil, is a veritable kaleidoscope of changes, a parade of creatures smeared like a rainbow blur of color from bacteria to human, each unique, each filling a gap between other fossils. We should be designating new species upon every find.

That’s not what the fossil record shows us. Instead we dig and, yup, it’s a Tyrannosaurus rex alright — the bone lengths and ratios all match up. Oh look, here’s another Brontosaurus. It’s the happy archaeologist who stumbles across a new species, publishing the discovery and making headlines. Otherwise what we find is predictable, falling in pretty rigid categories of already-known species. In 150 years of digging we became familiar with what was underground awfully quickly — there just wasn’t that much variety.

Disagree? Stephen Jay Gould didn’t. Credit him for seeing the problem as it was — fully formed species in the fossil record, no transitional forms — which is why he devised the prevailing model Darwinists use to explain away this phenomenon: punctuated equilibrium. Really it’s a clever way of saying that evolution occurred in a way that didn’t leave behind any proof.

I know you’ll be tempted to respond with this again …

And given the rarity of fossilization, there will always be gaps.

… to which I will answer again that Stephen Jay Gould didn’t do all that brainy equivocation for nothing. The gaps were simply too gaping even for him to dismiss.

The analogy with Einstein, is, of course, silly.

I agree. I didn’t quote the article because I liked that analogy. I included it as I included everything else — because I appreciated the whole article and didn’t want it to disappear in cyberspace, as so many do.

While there may be religious controversy, there is really none within the scientific community. Certainly, there could be in the future, but at this point, there is no model that comes even close to evolution for explaining biology, and of course much of biology and the medical sciences is built on evolution. Despite your assertion, I don’t believe there is any evidence that support for evolution is decreasing within the scientific community; it actually seems quite stable. Sure, it can be questioned, but until there is a model that approaches the success of evolution, they’ll just remain questions.

I agree that evolution is stable and secure for now, primarily because it has been so heavily politicized (ever read about what happened to Richard Sternberg?). I don’t think, however, that such stubborn inertia can be sustained, for the reasons I explained in my post. Questions can’t be suppressed forever.

As for explaining biology — as a Darwin dissenter I’m not at all disadvantaged in understanding biology or medical science. In fact I don’t have a problem with any sciences. A common ploy by propagandists is to pretend that a rejection of Darwinism is a rejection of all science, which is silly: just because I disagree with how the human heart came into being doesn’t mean I can’t comprehend its function here and now. Again the crucial distinction is on what is truly science, which is observable and reproducible — and Darwin dissenters like me don’t have any issue with observable and reproducible science.

Thanks again for taking the time to share your thoughts. Feel free to respond again, and/or read other posts I’ve written about evolution here.

Your understanding of the fossil record is flawed. Fossilization, of course, is an extremely rare event, and we are quite lucky that organisms are fossilized at all. But even if there were no fossil record at all, studying modern life forms and comparing genomes alone provide overwhelming evidence for evolution. We are fortunate that some organisms fossilize; this allows for further confirmation as well as illuminating more precisely the paths evolution has taken.

Your question about transitional species seems odd—what exactly do you suppose such a fossil would look like? There is no organism “in flux,” evolving towards a future perfect animal. Species were always adapted to fit the niche at the time, and only in retrospect do we see patterns. Whenever we find a new fossil that falls within a previous gap, naturally, there are two new, smaller gaps formed. And given the rarity of fossilization, there will always be gaps.

The analogy with Einstein, is, of course, silly. Einstein offered a model that fit observations better than Newton’s did. He did not simply claim we should abandon Newton’s ideas because there was no evidence that gravity from other stars or galaxies was affecting us, or such.

While there may be religious controversy, there is really none within the scientific community. Certainly, there could be in the future, but at this point, there is no model that comes even close to evolution for explaining biology, and of course much of biology and the medical sciences is built on evolution. Despite your assertion, I don’t believe there is any evidence that support for evolution is decreasing within the scientific community; it actually seems quite stable. Sure, it can be questioned, but until there is a model that approaches the success of evolution, they’ll just remain questions.