Part 3 of 7 - The Fossil Record, Dr. Don Patton, Ph.D.

[gregrutz]

Is this all he does, quote mine?

[macrodactyl]

Thinking about the transitional fossils - I'd like to see this guy dig up every piece of skeletal remains extending even back to his great-grandparents (Good luck!). I would then say to him that due to the gaps in the skeletal remains his theory that he had great-grandparents does not hold scientific credibility. Without the evidence how could he prove this? Do you see the flaw in his argument? It is really an incredibly silly argument he is making in this video.

[macrodactyl]

Here is a copy of the transcript on the ruling of the Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District Intelligent Design:

W W W dot pamd.uscourts.gov/kitzmiller/k­itzmiller_342.pdf

showing that evolution has indeed stood up in court and clearly the evidence didn't stand up in trial simply through bits and pieces of circumstantial evidence being slapped together. There was expert testimony and this trial had national coverage. Patton's ideas are bunk and non-scientific, evolution is science.

[macrodactyl]

@ryanladdy There are entire books written on the scientific principals and methods that apply to evolutionary theory. In every issue of the journals Nature and Science we have publications on evolution, hypotheses, tests and facts about the process. These are the same journals where Albert Einstein and others, such as Stephen Hawkin's publish their most prized works. There are thousands of articles churning out on a regular basis providing further evidence. Evolution is a highly robust science.

[macrodactyl]

@ryanladdy There are no 'gaps' in the theory, because we know and understand the taphonomy of fossils. Why are there so few bones hanging about? They decay and get eaten, dragged and we rarely see them after a few months. It takes some very specific circumstances for a fossil to form. Hence, we would never expect to see a pure transition of fossils leaping across time. We know, however, that creatures reproduce and that this chain of events is what links lineages and their homologous features.

[macrodactyl]

@ryanladdy I worked in a paleaontology lab for five years. I think you have no clue whatsoever how much evidence is out there. Moreover, it is not only about piecing one fossil to another as though there is a pure transition from one form to another. It requires and understanding of the undeniable fact of heritable reproduction that was elucidated by Gregor Mendel.

[macrodactyl]

@ryanladdy The evidence is not circumstantial at all - you can see it for yourself. It is measured in the bones, muscles and tissues of living creatures all compiled into a publicly verifiable table of information. The principals of natural selection by means of inheritance, variation and laws of population growth are fact - hence I don't know where you get your delusional idea that it can never be proven. It is one of the most astounding scientific ideas of all time.

[macrodactyl]

@ryanladdy I think you need to read up on the thousands of peer-reviewed scientific publications on evolution. I have been working as a geneticist for the past six years and every day I am collecting data that tells an evolutionary story. I'm just a lonely scientist tucked away in a lab. There are thousands of dedicated professionals that publish in highly accredited journals describing their methods, their hypothesis and executing statistical analysis of the data.

[macrodactyl]

@ryanladdy Not at all. In fact evolution did hold up in court: read up on the Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District Intelligent Design, a GW Bush appointed conservative judge was given the evidence and ruled in favor of teaching evolution in schools as part of the science curricula. The evolutionist does not slap bits and pieces of circumstantial evidence together. Observational facts are collected, such as pieces of genetic code or morphological characters coded into a systematic analysis.

[macrodactyl]

The Watson-Crick complementary base pairing of DNA provided a genetic explanation for the reason that homologous features are heritable. Genetics and the fossil record absolutely support Darwin's theory of evolution by means of natural selection. Notice also that Patton never explains what evolutionary theory is - he just says it is wrong and assumes everyone completely knows what it is about. As an educator I know that very few people can explain Darwin's theory with any degree of reliability.

[macrodactyl]

Homology is one of the unifying principals of evolution. Homologous structures, organs or genes, are similar in form and array for reasons of common ancestry. It is a weekly occurance for me to sequence a bacterial genome and one of its descendant genes from the colony a week later. The gene is often identical, sometimes a mutuation or two might pop up (unlikely in a week, but not impossible if put near a radiation source). This is homology - they are similar by decent.

[macrodactyl]

Patton is piecing bits and pieces together - little quote here and there all taken completely out of context of the entire article. The original authors said very different things. I have read the works by Gould, Mayr, Darwin, Ruse and others that Patton refers too. Every time he talks about their papers and what they said it is abundantly clear that the original authors would in no way be in support of Pattons use of their work and his contrivance in support of his creationist tale.

[ryanladdy]

@macrodactyl

It is interesting that you are so offended by his supposed "piecing bits and pieces together...all taken completely out of context." Yet isn't this exactly what evolutionary theory does? Does not the evolutionist slap together bits and pieces of incidental and circumstantial evidence together, all taken out of context, to prove a theory that is inherently unprovable? Piecemeal evidence that spans thousands of years across continents would never be admissable in court!

[macrodactyl]

@ryanladdy No that is not what evolutionists do. They are scientists. The science of evolution or evolutionists make observations, collect data, formulate hypotheses, subject theories to rigorous testing, and report on the evidence, facts, and nature of the science. Evolution has actually been put on trial multiple times in history and in American courts (for whatever that's worth). It won.

[macrodactyl]

@ryanladdy . I suggest you start off by getting a high school equivalent and then move onto reading an introductory book on biology and possibly evolution. You will learn that it is one of the greatest scientific ideas of our time. This means that it is the complete opposite of what you have identified here. I work full time as a geneticist and on a daily basis we use techniques and conduct experiments that would not work without the fact of evolution.

[wizard970]

@macrodactyl His PHD is in Christian Education from Pacific Collage of Graduate Studies (Luther Rice Universities). It is not accredited or authorized by any local or national board to grant degrees.

[macrodactyl]

He also talks about Darwin defining homology by reference to genes. Although Mendel was a contemporary of Darwin's, Mendel's laws of genetic inheritance was rediscovered after Darwin passed away. Darwin did not refer to homology by reference to genes. Moreover, Patton's definition of homology is wrong. The biogenic law is wrong, but this does not refute evolution and the quote by Gavin de Beer is a highly outdated and from an obscure place. Who knows what context it was taken from?

[macrodactyl]

I don't have time to go through all the quotes, but I will direct you to a simple examples. In the vid on right sidebar "Evolution: A religion or dogmatist propaganda?" listen to how he talks about Michael Ruse's paper from science. A pdf of the article can be retrieved by searing in GoogleScholar "PERCEPTIONS IN SCIENCE: Is Evolution a Secular Religion?" It is a simple article to read. Compare with what Patton says, it is not what Ruse was saying.

[macrodactyl]

Google scholar the following: Haeckel's embryos: fraud not proven - published in biology and philosophy. Haeckel did modify the scale and he used artistic licence to put the images together - he admitted as much. This, however, is nothing more than an interesting historical anecdote and has little bearing on evolutionary theory. Developmental biology has grown in the past 100 year since Haeckel and possibly contributed more to our understanding evolutionary theory than any other field.

[macrodactyl]

As a geneticist and a trained biologist who is familiar with evolutionary theory it is amazing to watch the spin. This guy misrepresents the evidence and contrives the story to fit the creationist tale while skipping over the details. He gives partial quotes and fills in the rest to give a different meaning than what was originally stated. Haeckels drawings are not as nearly as contrived as he indicates - I've studied developmental biology.

[chickensthree]

@macrodactyl

Can you be more specific on your points, especially the idea of "partial quotes." In reading Patton's cites I do not detect this. Also, regardig Haeckle's drawings you described them as "not as nearly contrived." So, you believe they were, at least to some degree, distortions. I see no other conclusion. You are aware, of course, that his drawings have long since been exposed and rejected, and for this reaon have been deleted from practically all biology related texts.

[FiverBeyond]

It may be considered unfortunate that the Theory of Evolution seems to contradict certain interpretations of Genesis, but that doesn't give us the right to deliberately misrepresent the data.

The number of chromosomes is especially deceptive on Patton's part. Yes, chromosome counts vary greatly across life... but the point is that closely related species have a very close number of chromosomes, not that the number is unique to that particular family, as Don Patton suggests.