How to Spot a Con

A popular principle with con men is to blind the simple with pseudo-eloquence. Ask an evolutionist for one clear example of species-to-species transitional forms (e.g., one fish transitioning into a reptile, or a dinosaur transitioning into a bird) and the con begins. You won’t get one example. You will get many, and like a male peacock in a mating ritual, the display begins: "An example of species-to-species transitional forms in the fossil record? No problem. There are many. There’s Eusthenopteron, Panderichthys, Tiktaalik, Acanthostega, Ichthyostega, Tulerpeton, Proterogyneris, and Hylonomus."

Mary Poppins had nothing on the super calculating fragile mystics of evolutionary exposition. Sorry, not impressed. Do you want clear proof of God’s existence?

Try "pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanokoniosis." I'm sure you would be as impressed with that as I am with your smoke and mirrors.

F. Dust said... "If ‘transitional form’ means a partially adapted species, then no transitional forms will ever be found. All creatures which survive long enough to be fossilized are fully adapted in the sense that they are adapted well enough to survive. . . . Paleobiologists use a different definition for the term ‘transitional form’: a species which is found midway between two other species on the phylogenetic tree. They show some characteristics of the descendant group, but not all . . . . These forms not only exist in the fossil record, they are relatively common. Ichthyostega is transitional between sarcopterygian fishes and amphibians; the therapsids are transitional between pelycosaur reptiles and mammals; Archaeopterix is transitional between archosaur reptiles and birds."

There are two problems with this: 1) Fossils are dead creatures. It's absurd to say something didn't "survive long enough to [die and] be fossilized." If a fish begins growing stubby little legs, making it less adapted to its current environment, it will die sooner rather than later. But the fossilization will begin at whatever age it dies. Dead things fossilize.

2) Anyone can look at a collection of things and categorize them from smallest to largest, from simplest to most complex. But that in no way makes them descendant from one another. We could do that with autos (sports car to Hummer), airplanes (biplane to jumbo jet), etc., and then announce our "scientific" conclusion: "Aha! See? That proves they have a common ancestor!" That's nonsense!

What is the scientific proof that similarity demands that they have common ancestry? Instead, more logical is that common design indicates a common designer. Lining up fossils is no more "scientific evidence" than lining up different makes of cars.