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Originally Posted by Neapolitan
First and foremost you should never apologize for having curiosity.
I said that Evolution is a matter of choice left up to the individual. There is too many inconsistencies with it from the time it was dreamt up until now. I have a couple of examples why I will not say one way or the other the hypothesis of Evolution is credulous enough to believe in.
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Your post is rather revealing in that it tells me just how little you know about evolution and also that you're not objective in your opinion about it. First off, your consistent use of the word "hypothesis" for a theory looks to me like a cheap shot at manipulating the reader and discrediting what is actually a theory. There's a difference between hypotheses and theories. Theories are supported by hypotheses. It's like the theory of gravity is supported by the hypothesis that a rock will fall to the ground if you drop it. It should be obvious that the "theory of evolution" is a theory and not a hypothesis so I have to conclude that you're using the wrong word with intent.
Second you write that it is inconsistent from the time it was "dreamt up", another choice of words that reveal just how you feel about it. You know it wasn't "dreamt up" because it took Charles Darwin over 20 years to formulate it in his mind before he finally wrote that book and he wasn't the only one who was figuring out what was happening in nature either. Second, the theory of evolution
is consistent. What Darwin wrote in the Origin of Species is still highly relevant today. It has changed in that we now know more - about genes, about kin selection and so on - but the main principles have been the same since the beginning. If it seems inconsistent, I'm guessing it's because you don't know what those principles are.
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Originally Posted by Neapolitan
Now not to split hairs but take rabbits for instance, at one time they were considered to be related to rodents and here they turn out to be more closely related to primates. Honestly, should I go around erroneously believing that rabbits are related to rodents?
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Then you get to your first real criticism - that rabbits are closer to primates while you think of them more as rodents - or something along those lines. The last time I checked, lagomorphs which includes rabbits and hares branch aslongside rodentia, the rodents. I checked and it seems they still do in all the trees I found, so I don't know what you're on about. Here's a
wikipedia article that contains some support (sources) for my claim. Do you have any sources supporting yours?
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Originally Posted by Neapolitan
Or how about the case of the big beaver, these beavers were so big they were as big as bears and at one time they thought the big beaver through a slow process of evolution slowly evolved (just like every-other animal does) through millions of years into small beavers, but then they (the scientists) found out hey both of these beavers were neighbors and they lived at the same point in time. So well then maybe they didn't evolve into each other afterall. Sadly enough the last of the big beavers died alone in a cave in Ohio, the last of it unevolved kind.
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First of all, do you have a source to back this story up? Second of all, how does this discredit the theory of evolution?
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Originally Posted by Neapolitan
Or how about the Pterosaurs, they arrived on the scene fully formed with enormous wings spans, there was no missing link, they had just magically appeared fully formed and they were pretty big in the earliest of fossil records and then at the hieght of their evovlutionary career they got as big a lion - both in size and weight. Scientitst haven't found a intermediate lizard-pterosaur link - sadly enough.
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Again I don't really trust any of your arguments so I'd like to see a source. Still, none of this conflicts the theory of evolution. There are lots of ancestors and "intermediates" out there which is a horrible term, but okay. However, as Barnard understands, you need rather specific conditions in order to get a fossil. It just doesn't happen every day and so you can't observe every change that happens to any old species over millions of years. If you go out and dig for the first time, you might get a fossil and that tells you something about a certain point in time in our hundreds upon hundreds of millions of years history with life on this planet. Finding fossils for every species for every point in time is impossible and creationists seem to think that means evolution can't be true.
It's funny that creationists talk so much about fossils and point out gaps between them. If anything, fossils support the theory of evolution. It shows that animals were different in the past and the further away you get in time, the more different they become. This is rather consistent with the theory of evolution and it has no problem explaining it. Furthermore, you
do sometimes have good fossil records that show gradual change, such as in recent humans, Titanotheres which is a rhino-like extinct animal or Phacops, a trilobite.
If you ask me, it's much harder to feasibly explain the fossil record from a religious point of view.
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Originally Posted by Neapolitcan
All I'm saying is I prefer people to make up there own mind on the matter. And as for myself I won't say I agree one way or another whether or not the Evolution hypothesis merits something to admit for it's historicity and credulity. I'm waiting for scientitist to stop evolving the Evolution hypothesis itself.
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You mean you'd like the theory of evolution to stop gaining empirical support?
You write that you prefer people to make up their own minds, yet you regurgitate creationist discussion methods. The first thing I noticed about your post is that all your criticism is directed towards fossils, ancestors and the past. That's really in the creationist tradition, they always do so and so do you. Needless to say, we can't observe the past - a fossil tells you something about a point in time in a hundreds of millions of years history. Biologists can't even agree on many phylogenetic relationships of the past, so why should creationists? However, discrediting a phylogenetic relationship is not the same as discrediting evolution. What I'm saying is your arguments make little sense, but I'd like to see you try and discredit the theory of evolution without having to resort to fossils and the like.
Also, you claim to have an open mind, yet word yourself with phrases like "dreamt up" and "hypothesis" instead of "theory" .. I think they betray your real feelings.