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Zachriel Goes Into Insane Denial Mode

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Zachriel says that “Darwin held that evolution would be frequently characterized by stasis.”  In support of this piece of blithering idiocy he quotes the following from Origin (4th ed):

the periods during which species have undergone modification, though long as measured in years, have probably been short in comparison with the periods during which they retain the same form.

I responded by placing Zach’s quote in context.  This is what Darwin actually said:

On this doctrine of the extermination of an infinitude of connecting links, between the living and extinct inhabitants of the world, and at each successive period between the extinct and still older species, why is not every geological formation charged with such links? Why does not every collection of fossil remains afford plain evidence of the gradation and mutation of the forms of life?  Although geological research has undoubtedly revealed the former existence of many links, bringing numerous forms of life much closer together, it does not yield the infinitely many fine gradations between past and present species required on the theory, and this is the most obvious of the many objections which may be urged against it. Why, again, do whole groups of allied species appear, though this appearance is often false, to have come in suddenly on the successive geological stages? I can answer these questions and objections only on the supposition that the geological record is far more imperfect than most geologists believe. The number of specimens in all our museums is absolutely as nothing compared with the countless generations of countless species which have certainly existed . . .Many species when once formed never undergo any further change but become extinct without leaving modified descendants; and the periods during which species have undergone modification, though long as measured by years, have probably been short in comparison with the periods during which they retained the same form

We can summarize what Darwin said in 3 steps:

Step 1:  What Darwin’s Theory Predicts

Darwin says that if his theory is correct there would have been an “extermination of an infinitude of connecting links, between the living and extinct inhabitants of the world, and at each successive period between the extinct and still older species.”

Further down he says his theory REQUIRES “infinitely many fine gradations between past and present species.”

In summary, Darwin predicted “rampant, albeit gradual, change affecting all lineages through time” just as Eldredge and Tatterall later said. See Niles Eldredge, Ian Tattersall, The Myths of Human Evolution

Earth to Zach.  Darwin held that evolution would be characterized generally by an “infinitude of connecting links,” and “infinitely many fine gradations.”  He most certainly did not say that the evolution would be characterized by stasis.  He said just exactly the opposite.  FAIL.

Step 2:  Darwin’s Problem.

Darwin candidly admitted that the fossil record does not reveal that “infinitude of connecting links” his theory predicts:

Why does not every collection of fossil remains afford plain evidence of the gradation and mutation of the forms of life? . . .it does not yield the infinitely many fine gradations between past and present species required on the theory, and this is the most obvious of the many objections which may be urged against it

Step 3:  Darwin Tries to Explain His Problem Away

After admitting his problem with the fossil record, Darwin immediately went on to try to explain the problem away.  And Zach’s little snippet comes from one of the arguments he makes about why the fossil record is incomplete at best and sometimes even deceptive, because it does not reveal what his theory – his word – “requires.”  With respect to bit clipped by Zach, Darwin says that the record might give a false impression of general stasis, not that his theory actually predicts general stasis.  This false impression is created, Darwin says, because some species that happened to leave fossils behind became extinct without leaving descendants.  Why does this leave a false impression?  Because an individual species that is not representative of the process of evolution as a whole as predicted by Darwin, by the sheer happenstance, became the one that left a fossil record.

In summary, Zach has used Darwin’s claim that certain fossils leave a FALSE impression of stasis to support Zach’s claim that Darwin actually predicted stasis generally.  FAIL

Zach is wrong and you don’t have to be an ID advocate to know it.  Eminent, world famous DARWINISTS disagree with Zach:

Darwin’s prediction of rampant, albeit gradual, change affecting all lineages through time is refuted. The record is there, and the record speaks for tremendous anatomical conservatism. Change in the manner Darwin expected is just not found in the fossil record.

Niles Eldredge, Ian Tattersall, The Myths of Human Evolution

You might think that would settle the matter.  But it did not.  After I laid all of this out Zach responded:

No. Darwin explains why the fossil record won’t encapsulate every transition. First, because fossilization is necessarily incomplete; second, because stasis is more typical than change, so change will be less likely to be preserved; and third, because new species will often form in small, isolated populations, and are therefore unlikely to leave fossils . . . Gould and Eldredge were often criticized for overstatement.

Good grief Zach do you have no shame?  Do you seriously believe you can get away with saying that Darwin believed stasis is more typical than change and not his own words when he wrote “infinitely many fine gradations between past and present species [are] required on the theory.”

You have descended into insane denial.

Which brings up an age old question.  If the evidence for modern evolutionary theory is so overwhelming, why do its advocates continue to lie and lie and lie when they argue for it?  If the truth were on their side one would think they would stick to it.  Or maybe the truth isn’t on their side and that is why Zach feels like he has to tell whoppers.  The problem is that while Zach is certainly a liar, he is not a very good one, because his lies, like this one, are so easily exposed.*

“What inclines me now to think you may be right in regarding it [evolution] as the central and radical lie in the whole web of falsehood that now governs our lives is not so much your arguments against it as the fanatical and twisted attitudes of its defenders.”  Lewis, C.S., Private letter (1951) to Captain Bernard Acworth

___________

*Maybe Zach is really a YEC fundamentalist agent provocateur shilling as a Darwinist?  If that is the case Zach, dial it back.  You are laying it on too thick, to the point where your act is no longer believable.

Comments
Damn you are stupid, I told to you to carry on the other thread, I will post a reply to you there.Jack Jones
November 22, 2015
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Jack Jones: Nothing in what Stephen E Jones quoted misrepresented anything The paraphrase does not represent the contents of the page. The only place Mayr refers to Darwin is when he says "All of his life Darwin insisted that this is simply due to the unimaginable incompleteness of the fossil record." Darwin was correct about the incompleteness of the fossil record, and explictly provided the reasons for its incompleteness. Furthermore, we know that Mayr was aware of this.
Ernst Mayr, Speciational Evolution or Punctuated Equilibria 1992: Even Darwin, for reasons that relate to his struggle against creationism, stressed the transformational aspect of evolution. He was, however, fully aware of highly different rates of evolution, from complete stasis to rates of change so fast that intermediates could not be discovered in the fossil record.
Zachriel
November 22, 2015
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BTW....I am now posting on Mr Arrington's new post so won't be replying to anything more here.Jack Jones
November 21, 2015
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"Because the very first sentence misrepresented the contents of the book being cited." Nothing in what Stephen E Jones quoted misrepresented anything, if it did then you could have pointed it out but You didn't, you ignored the next sentence because it refuted you, If it did misrepresent then you would have quoted the next sentence to point it out. That's why you quote whined because you couldn't refute the quote. You then went on to quote an earlier quote which even if it had supported you would have been trumped by the later quote but even your own quote was an argument against your own position. You got to do better.Jack Jones
November 21, 2015
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Jack Jones: Fact is that you ignored the next sentence in the book Because .... Because the very first sentence misrepresented the contents of the book being cited.Zachriel
November 21, 2015
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Fact is that you ignored the next sentence in the book Because it refuted you, You resorted to your quote whine and then posted an earlier phrase from a different source of Mayr that also refuted you but you were deluded to think it helped you. If the next sentence had supported you then you wouldn't have ignored it and ended up with your quote whines to hand wave it away. Your quote whines aren't a valid rebuttal and posting an earlier quote which destroys your own position is not very good either. You must do better.Jack Jones
November 21, 2015
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Jack Jones: That was his explanation for the lack of transitionals and nothing to do with because Darwin expected stasis. Darwin claimed the fossil record was imperfect for a variety of explicitly stated reasons.Zachriel
November 21, 2015
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"The citation gives a misimpression of Mayr’s views. " Incorrect, It supports it, that is why you ignored it and went desperately searching for another quote because the follow on did not support you. Your quote failed to support you either. Zach (quote whine) "(quote mine)" You fell back on quote whining because you could not support your case. It is an admission of your surrender. "Mayr says that Darwin claimed that the fossil record was incomplete, which is clearly true" That was his explanation for the lack of transitionals and nothing to do with because Darwin expected stasis It did not support you so you ignored it and resorted to your quote whine instead. You must do better, your quote whining is not a valid rebuttal but an admission of your surrender.Jack Jones
November 21, 2015
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Jack Jones: Quote whining with the phrase quote mine yet again just shows you can’t refute what was being posted. The citation gives a misimpression of Mayr's views. Jack Jones (quote mine): The fossil record fails to reflect the gradual change one would expect if Darwinian evolution was true (Mayr, 2001, p.14). It's not a quote from Mayr, and nothing on the page supports the claim. Rather, Mayr says that Darwin claimed that the fossil record was incomplete, which is clearly true. Furthermore, on the very same page, Mayr points out some excellent transitions represented in the fossil record, such as from therapsid to mammals.Zachriel
November 21, 2015
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@212 "It provides a better description of Mayr’s view than the quote-mine you provided." Quote whining with the phrase quote mine yet again just shows you can't refute what was being posted. It shows desperation, You wouldn't get away with that hand waving phrase in a court of law. The view your quote provides is that Mayr was making apologies for darwin, he is in essence admitting that stasis is not part of Darwin's hypothesis. This is backed up later on by the fact that Mayr in "what evolution is" admits that the lack of transitionals was put down to an incomplete fossil record, The idea of darwin expecting a pattern of stasis did not come into it. It is further shown by the fact that you cannot show anything wrong in what was quoted by Stephen E Jones and that is why you ignore it and fall back on quote whining with the phrase "quote mine" A phrase that evolutionists fall back on when they are destroyed in debate and cannot refute a quote that has been posted. It's no good revisionists saying that well Darwin believed it really. We are talking about what he put forth in his hypothesis and stasis was not expected from his hypothesis. "they return to the concept of what we now call punctuated equilibrium as described by, first Falconer, then Darwin" Darwin rejected evolution in leaps as you have already been educated on. You're a failure zach.Jack Jones
November 21, 2015
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Jack Jones: That is not following up from what Stephen E Jones quoted It provides a better description of Mayr's view than the quote-mine you provided. Jack Jones: Based on what you have quoted then What Mayr is saying is that Darwin didn’t emphasize the stasis because he was arguing against Creationism but he knew about it really. That's correct. Darwin not only knew about stasis, but considered it an important consideration in explaining the fossil record. However, the primary argument at the time concerned adaptation. Paleontologists had plenty to work to do in terms of outlining the broad history of evolution. Only when they started to fill in more of the details did they return to the concept of what we now call punctuated equilibrium as described by, first Falconer, then Darwin.Zachriel
November 21, 2015
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Ignoring a post that destroys you, will not make it go away. Zach “(quote mine)” Quote whining with the evo propaganda Phrase “quote mine” does not refute what was posted You post this. “Ernst Mayr, Speciational Evolution or Punctuated Equilibria 1992: Even Darwin, for reasons that relate to his struggle against creationism, stressed the transformational aspect of evolution.” That is not following up from what Stephen E Jones quoted, you have quoted a different source and not the page or book that he was referring to. Let’s see what you have quoted though. “Even Darwin, for reasons that relate to his struggle against creationism, stressed the transformational aspect of evolution.” How would that help you, That would be saying that the fossil record to be cogent as an argument against creationism would need to be transformational, That only strengthens the case of Darwin arguing against a lack of transitionals being consistent with his hypothesis. We go on. “He was, however, fully aware of highly different rates of evolution, from complete stasis to rates of change so fast that intermediates could not be discovered in the fossil record.” That doesn’t support you at all, In fact it shows Mayr trying to justify that Darwin really knew about the stasis but didn’t make it something that should be expected on his hypothesis because he was arguing against Creationists. Based on what you have quoted then What Mayr is saying is that Darwin didn’t emphasize the stasis because he was arguing against Creationism but he knew about it really. How does that help you, If he knew about it but didn’t argue for it as being expected on his hypothesis then that is a problem for Darwin. Special Pleading from Mayr doesn’t help you, It emphasizes that it is not consistent with what Darwin argued for. This is what Mayr argued in his later book, what evolution is. Stephen E Jones referencing Pg 14 of his book. “The fossil record fails to reflect the gradual change one would expect if Darwinian evolution was true (Mayr,) What did Mayr say in the follow up which you ignored and went to an earlier source which does not even support you but refutes you. This was the very next sentence “All of his life Darwin insisted that this is simply due to the unimaginable incompleteness of the fossil record.” So not only did you not quote the next line from the same page or even same book that Jones was referring to which shows Mayr saying that Darwin insisted the reason for the lack of transitionals was the incompleteness of the fossil record. But your earlier source shows Mayr special pleading that Darwin knew about it but didn’t want to argue for it because he was arguing against creationism. So that does not help you. Even if that quote had of supported you instead of refuting you,then it would have been trumped by Mayr’s later words in 2002 where he admitted Darwin put down the lack of transitions to an incomplete fossil record. But not just the earlier quote that you quoted but Mayr’s later words refute you also. You really are terrible Zach. You must do better.Jack Jones
November 21, 2015
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Jack Jones: “All of his life Darwin insisted that this is simply due to the unimaginable incompleteness of the fossil record.” Darwin was right, of course. Barry Arrington: Ask yourself why Darwin said the fossil record was imperfect Darwin told us why the fossil record would be incomplete @108.Zachriel
November 21, 2015
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Zach "(quote mine)" Quote whining with the evo propaganda Phrase "quote mine" does not refute what was posted You post this. "Ernst Mayr, Speciational Evolution or Punctuated Equilibria 1992: Even Darwin, for reasons that relate to his struggle against creationism, stressed the transformational aspect of evolution." That is not following up from what Stephen E Jones quoted, you have quoted a different source and not the page or book that he was referring to. Let's see what you have quoted though. "Even Darwin, for reasons that relate to his struggle against creationism, stressed the transformational aspect of evolution." How would that help you, That would be saying that the fossil record to be cogent as an argument against creationism would need to be transformational, That only strengthens the case of Darwin arguing against a lack of transitionals being consistent with his hypothesis. We go on. "He was, however, fully aware of highly different rates of evolution, from complete stasis to rates of change so fast that intermediates could not be discovered in the fossil record." That doesn't support you at all, In fact it shows Mayr trying to justify that Darwin really knew about the stasis but didn't make it something that should be expected on his hypothesis because he was arguing against Creationists. Based on what you have quoted then What Mayr is saying is that Darwin didn't emphasize the stasis because he was arguing against Creationism but he knew about it really. How does that help you, If he knew about it but didn't argue for it as being expected on his hypothesis then that is a problem for Darwin. Special Pleading from Mayr doesn't help you, It emphasizes that it is not consistent with what Darwin argued for. This is what Mayr argued in his later book, what evolution is. Stephen E Jones referencing Pg 14 of his book. "The fossil record fails to reflect the gradual change one would expect if Darwinian evolution was true (Mayr,) What did Mayr say in the follow up which you ignored and went to an earlier source which does not even support you but refutes you. This was the very next sentence “All of his life Darwin insisted that this is simply due to the unimaginable incompleteness of the fossil record.” So not only did you not quote the next line from the same page or even same book that Jones was referring to which shows Mayr saying that Darwin insisted the reason for the lack of transitionals was the incompleteness of the fossil record. But your earlier source shows Mayr special pleading that Darwin knew about it but didn't want to argue for it because he was arguing against creationism. So that does not help you. Even if that quote had of supported you instead of refuting you,then it would have been trumped by Mayr's later words in 2002 where he admitted Darwin put down the lack of transitions to an incomplete fossil record. But not just the earlier quote that you quoted but Mayr's later words refute you also. You really are terrible Zach. You must do better.Jack Jones
November 21, 2015
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@207 "Ask yourself why Darwin said the fossil record was imperfect it it showed exactly what his theory predicted it would show, he certainly would not have called it imperfect. No, he called it imperfect because it did not show what his theory predicted it would show, and he set about trying to explain this anomaly. In fact, he wagered his entire project on his ability to explain away the fossil record:" Exactly Mr Arrington, This is clear and irrefutable logic but those that want to worship Darwin do not want to admit their idol was wrong.Jack Jones
November 21, 2015
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Pete:
Yes – the fossil record is imperfect since it can’t show us everything that happened in history.
More progress. That is exactly what I have been saying Darwin said. Ask yourself why Darwin said the fossil record was imperfect it it showed exactly what his theory predicted it would show, he certainly would not have called it imperfect. No, he called it imperfect because it did not show what his theory predicted it would show, and he set about trying to explain this anomaly. In fact, he wagered his entire project on his ability to explain away the fossil record:
He who rejects these views on the nature of the geological record, will rightly reject my whole theory. For he may ask in vain where are the numberless transitional links which must formerly have connected the closely allied or representative species, found in the several stages of the same great formation.
Summary from Darwin's perspective: 1. My theory predicts that natural selection is working everywhere all the time to effect tiny morphological changes that accumulate over time and result in new species appearing. 2. The result is an extremely gradual process in which new species over eons of time though slow practically imperceptible changes arise from prior species. 3. If that is what happened, there must have existed infinitely many fine gradations between past and present species. IOW "just in proportion as this process of extermination has acted on an enormous scale, so must the number of intermediate varieties, which have formerly existed, be truly enormous." 4. My theory predicts that "infinitely many fine gradations" (i.e., a "truly enormous" number of intermediate varieties). IOW, the record of life is one of rampant gradual morphological change affecting the vast majority of species the vast majority of the time. The record of life is NOT one of sudden appearance and stasis. Yes, stasis can sometimes happen with respect to an individual species, but stasis is not the rule. Indeed, my entire project is aimed at undermining the creationist notion of the fixity of species. How could I do that if I were to say that stasis is the rule among life forms generally? 5. The fossil record most assuredly does not reveal "infinitely many fine gradations" (i.e., a "truly enormous" number of intermediate varieties) as the rule. 6. Instead, the fossil record reveals sudden appearance and stasis as the rule. 7. Thus, the fossil record would seem to falsify my theory, because it does not reveal what my theory predicts it should reveal. 8. And that is a serious problem for me, the "most obvious of the many objections which may be urged against" my theory. 9. The answer lies not in my theory but in the fossil record. My theory is perfect; the history of life is exactly as I said was, full of an infinite number of transitions. The fossil record is imperfect, because it fails to capture that. 10. Here is why I believe the fossil record is imperfect: blah, blah, blah. 11. If I am wrong about why the fossil record is imperfect, my theory comes falling down around me.Barry Arrington
November 21, 2015
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@Born That's what zach does, argue ad infinitum, He did that dishonestly against me and mike about things we were not asking about. He cannot argue honestly, he has now fallen back on the desperate village evolutionist phrase of "quote mine" to Impugn what Stephen E Jones quoted of Mayr and then he quotes some passage that did not follow from the page from what Stephen E Jones was referring to. This is what followed In Mayr's book from what Stephen E Jones referred to. “All of his life Darwin insisted that this is simply due to the unimaginable incompleteness of the fossil record.” Funny how zachy dishonestly ignored that and quoted something else because it backed up that Darwin passed off the lack of transitionals as being the result of an incomplete fossil record. Zach is a very dishonest, he likes to go round in circles like a dog chasing its tail to deflect instead of dealing with what is being asked, he did that to Mike and Me on the other thread, He has fallen back on the evo propaganda phrase "quote mine" and he has quoted a different passage than what Stephen E Jones was referring to because it does not support his case and he has ignored what other referenced experts said that were quoted. Shows what a failure he is.Jack Jones
November 21, 2015
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Zany Zach really can't help himself if he posts stuff over and over. Over on the other thread he is now arguing that he does not really exist but is merely a deterministic robot governed by law and chance https://uncommondescent.com/intelligent-design/wd400-doubles-down-on-dobzhanskys-maxim/#comment-589288 So when Zach keeps repeating himself on a thread, he is simply doing what law and chance have commanded him to do. i.e. There really is no person named 'Zach' to say otherwise.bornagain
November 21, 2015
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Barry,
Pete, you don’t get to add text that is not there to suit your argument.
That is the only way the whole passage makes sense. Sometimes you need to comprehend the whole passage to understand the implicit reference.
Darwin said that the fossil record is an obvious objection to his theory period full stop.
Then he explained why that obvious objection is invalid if the rate of morphological change is not constant. This is not complex. This is how scientific writing works. See my post @ 68. 200:
The explanation lies, as I believe, in the extreme imperfection of the geological record.
Yes - the fossil record is imperfect since it can't show us everything that happened in history. In particular if morphological change is sometimes quite fast, the fossil record will fail to record it. This doesn't mean the fossil record is "false" or lying - it means it is imperfect. Like my facebook wall is an imperfect history of my life. For years and years I didn't have a beard. Then one day I did! With no intermediates! (I'm not sure how far to take this anaology...)
If Pete and Zach were right he would have said “The explanation lies, I believe, in the fact that the rate of morphological change is not uniform” or something to that effect. He did not
Well, he did. That's what this:
and the periods during which species have undergone modification, though long as measured by years, have probably been short in comparison with the periods during which they retained the same form
means. Edit: Kid awake. I'm out. Enjoy.peteFun
November 21, 2015
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@197 "quote mine" Quote Mine-Code for-Any quote that destroys an evotard. Let's see what followed what Stephen E Jones referred to in his reference of Mayr Instead of what Zach the quote whiner posted. "All of his life Darwin insisted that this is simply due to the unimaginable incompleteness of the fossil record." Darwin put down the lack of transitions to the incompleteness of the fossil record. Trust zach not to quote what followed from what Stephen E Jones was referring to, he is very dishonest to quote something else in order to impugn what Stephen E Jones said when the next phrase coming up from Mayr just confirms that Darwin fobbed off the lack of transitionals as an imperfect fossil record. Zach only has his sophomoric evotard phrase and fallacy of arguing ad infinitum instead of dealing with what people like Mike and Me and others are asking, Now he is not even quoting from what followed from what Stephen E Jones said. It shows that he is not cut out for mature and honest debate.Jack Jones
November 21, 2015
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@70, @71Zachriel
November 21, 2015
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DELETED: Zach, you've posted your list five times now. Posting the same list over and over again does not advance the discussion. The ability to copy and paste is the same as the ability to make a cogent argument. If you have something to add, by all means do so. Zachriel
November 21, 2015
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Darwin:
But just in proportion as this process of extermination has acted on an enormous scale, so must the number of intermediate varieties, which have formerly existed, be truly enormous. Why then is not every geological formation and every stratum full of such intermediate links? Geology assuredly does not reveal any such finely graduated organic chain; and this, perhaps, is the most obvious and serious objection which can be urged against the theory. The explanation lies, as I believe, in the extreme imperfection of the geological record.
Take a close look at that last sentence: "The explanation lies, as I believe, in the extreme imperfection of the geological record." If Pete and Zach were right he would have said "The explanation lies, I believe, in the fact that the rate of morphological change is not uniform" or something to that effect. He did not Just as I have said all along, Darwin believed that the fossil record does NOT show what actually happened. That is why he says it is extremely imperfect. This is staggeringly obvious and has been the standard reading for 157 years. Pete and Zach' revisionism to the contrary notwithstanding.Barry Arrington
November 21, 2015
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Box: Sigh …. Instead of sighing, why not explain why our response is not sufficient. Or should we just repeat our explanation? To Darwin, large populations gave more opportunities because there was more diversity, and that diversity would be most expressed in sub-populations on the geographic periphery. This is where Darwin thought adaptation would occur.
Darwin, Origin of Species 1866: It is the dominant and widely ranging species which vary most frequently and vary most, and varieties are often at first local—both causes rendering the discovery of intermediate links in any one formation less likely. Local varieties will not spread into other and distant regions until they are considerably modified and improved; and when they have spread, and are discovered in a geological formation, they appear as if suddenly created there, and will be simply classed as new species.
Zachriel
November 21, 2015
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Barry says Darwin says:
The fossil record is an OBVIOUS objection to my theory,
Pete adds
If one assumes a uniform rate of morphological change.
Pete, you don't get to add text that is not there to suit your argument. Darwin said that the fossil record is an obvious objection to his theory period full stop. That you feel compelled to add text he did not write to support your views is a sign of desperation.Barry Arrington
November 21, 2015
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Jack Jones (quote mine): The fossil record fails to reflect the gradual change one would expect if Darwinian evolution was true (Mayr, 2001, p.14). Ernst Mayr, Speciational Evolution or Punctuated Equilibria 1992: Even Darwin, for reasons that relate to his struggle against creationism, stressed the transformational aspect of evolution. He was, however, fully aware of highly different rates of evolution, from complete stasis to rates of change so fast that intermediates could not be discovered in the fossil record.Zachriel
November 21, 2015
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Zach: Darwin explains why the fossil record won’t encapsulate every transition (…) because new species will OFTEN form in SMALL, ISOLATED populations, and (…).
Stephen Meyer: Darwin recognized in On the Origin of Species that evolution is a numbers game: LARGER population sizes and more generations offer MORE opportunities for favorable new variations to arise. As he explained: “Forms existing in LARGER numbers will always have a BETTER chance . . . of presenting further favourable variations for natural selection to seize on, than will the rarer forms which exist in lesser numbers.”
If both statements about Darwin’s position are true, one has to conclude, as I did: “It looks like that Darwin is all over the place, continually contradicting himself.” Enter Zach:
Zach: There’s no contradiction. It refers to large populations which have heterogeneous subpopulations.
Sigh ….Box
November 21, 2015
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PROBLEMS OF EVOLUTION”: 10. FOSSIL RECORD 1. Not Darwinian 1. Not gradualistic The fossil record fails to reflect the gradual change one would expect if Darwinian evolution was true (Mayr, 2001, p.14). Two features of the fossil record that are particularly inconsistent with gradualism are sudden appearance fully formed, and stasis (Gould, 1977a, p.14). Yet for over a century and a half paleontologists had been “brain-washed, by the gradualistic uniformitarianism of Charles Lyell.” (Ager, 1993, p.xi). Darwin himself had been greatly influenced by Lyell’s gradualistic uniformitarianism (Davidheiser, 1969, pp.60-61) and based his theory of evolution by the “accumulation of successive slight favourable variations” on it (Ager, 1993, p.129). This caused paleontologists to publicly claim that the fossil record supports the Darwinian interpretation of the fossil record, while privately knowing all along that it does not (Eldredge, 1985, p.144)!” http://members.iinet.net.au/~s.....0fsrc.htmlJack Jones
November 21, 2015
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Darwin, Origin of Species 1866: It is a more important consideration, clearly leading to the same result, as lately insisted on by Dr. Falconer, namely, that the periods during which species have been undergoing modification, though very long as measured by years, have probably been short in comparison with the periods during which these same species remained without undergoing any change. As Darwin's statement was strengthened in later editions due to the palaeontological work of Hugh Falconer, and was consistent with his own studies showing granularity in the evolution of barnacles, it's clear that Darwin thought stasis occurred frequently. Jack Jones: Paleontologists were aware of what Darwin’s view of what the fossil record should be and they didn’t want to admit stasis because it contradicted Darwin’s view. That's clearly not consistent with @70, wherein Darwin invokes Falconer who made significant discoveries concerning stasis in the vertebrate fossil record.Zachriel
November 21, 2015
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Barry,
Can you not understand that the whole point of the passage is that Darwin is arguing that what is more typical in the fossil record is NOT a reflection of what is more typical with regard to the history of life.
False. Re-read the passage with your thinking cap on, and when you get to this part:
and the periods during which species have undergone modification, though long as measured by years, have probably been short in comparison with the periods during which they retained the same form
think to yourself "What if I am mis-interpreting this?"peteFun
November 21, 2015
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