Sunday, January 4, 2009

god(s) of the Gaps

Be afraid. Be *very* afraid. Answers in Genesis is warning us that the upcoming celebrations of Darwin's 200th birthday and 150th anniversary of his publication of On The Origin of Species will not be honest about the 'true' origins of life. Specifically they claim:

During the “Year of Darwin” and “Darwin Day” celebrations on February 12, our hope is that many souls will dig a little deeper and discover the true Source of Life, whose Book holds the key that unlocks the mysteries of life.


Of course they're talking about their holy codex (La Biblia), which they apparently seem to think was meant as a science book from god.

In the article, they link to free samples from their latest issue of Answers Magazine, (I imagine they're having trouble selling it) pulling perspectives from creation 'scientists' who 'research' the creation 'model'. Sorry for the quotes, but I don't want you thinking I consider those true to their definitions.

In the article God of the Gaps, they point out that transitional fossils still do not exist in the fossil record, and according to Darwin's text himself his hypothesis is thus refuted. I think because they've repeated this drivel so much that they actually believe it.

It's painful to read through the many errors in the text, not least of which when they continue to purport evidence from fossils laid down by 'the Flood'. Most interesting about this particular article is how, instead of completely ignoring the evidence (as they normally do), they twist and lie about what it represents by misleading the reader to think it's an interesting anomaly:

Likewise, groups of animals that purportedly link reptiles to mammals, or fish to amphibians, are fascinating cases to be studied. Rather than being transitions, they appear to be brushstrokes from God’s creative palette, examples of wonderful designs suited for their unique, pre-Flood environments.


'Cases to be studied'? 'Brushstrokes from God's creative palette'? Wtf? There are SO many examples of transitional fossils - invertebrates to fish, dinosaurs to birds, evolution of whales, horses, and human primates. Here's an example of the transition of fish to tetrapods:



I got the pictures from Wikipedia - they are artistic renditions based on the fossils discovered. I took the liberty of organizing them into a timeline with names and dates. Note how every 2-5 million years there's another advance to the tetrapod form.

Of course Ken Ham would have you believe that these are not transitions, but instead 'brushstrokes' of a creator. This is what you call 'moving the goal posts' - this is what happens with true believers. Because they start out with their conclusion, they claim that there are no transitional forms because a god created the world 6000 years ago. They are admitting that transitional forms would refute their 'creation model' so they are forced to claim that they simply don't exist, but implicit in this is that should transitional fossils be presented their model would be invalidated. So now when we have them, and when new ones are discovered, instead of being intellectually honest and admitting what they are, they simply move the goal posts and say that they aren't really transitional 'enough'. Some creationists think transitional forms mean cats giving birth to dogs, etc. That just shows their complete ignorance when it comes to the subject in general.

Go be motivated - google search transitional forms and see all of the awesomely cool links that we DO have. Don't let someone fool you into thinking that we are missing all transitional forms. Imagine how many others might still be out there ...

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