Riddle me this: Genesis 2:24

[Reba]

REFERENCES
1 Raup, David M., Field Museum of Natural History Bulletin, Vol. 50, 1979, p. 25.
2 Olson, E. C., The Evolution of Life, New York: The New American Library, 1965, p. 207.
3 Simpson, G. G., Tempo and Mode in Evolution, New York: Columbia University Press, 1944, p. 105.
4 Romer, A. S., Vertebrate Paleontology, 3rd Ed., Chicago: Univ. of Chicago Press, 1966, p. 254.
5 Olson, E. C., p. 178.
6 Romer, A. S., p. 297.
7 Romer, A. S., p. 339.
8 Würsig, B., Scientific American, Vol. 240, 1979, p. 136.
9 Romer, A. S., p. 338.
10 Birdsell, J. B., Human Evolution, Chicago: Rand McNally College Pub. Co., 1975, p. 169.
11 Simpson, G. G., The Major Features of Evolution, New York: Columbia Univ. Press, 1953, p. 259.
12 Birdsell, J. B., p. 170.
13 Romer, A. S., pp. 260-261.
14 Nevins, S., Creation Research Society Quarterly, Vol. 10, 1974, p. 196.
15 Gregory, J. T., University of California Publications in Geological Sciences, Vol. 26, 1942, p. 428.
16 Cousins, F. W., Creation Research Society Quarterly, Vol. 7, 1971, p. 102.
17 Nilsson, H., Synthetische Artbildung, Verlag CWE Gleerup, Lund, Sweden, 1954. (See F.W. Cousins, Ref. 16, for a summary on the horse.)
18 Kerkut, G. A., Implications of Evolution, New York: Pergamon Press, 1960, p. 149.
19 Romer, A. S., p. 303. The following quotes from Romer are in the section pp. 304-31 0.
20 Simons, E. L., Annals New York Academy of Sciences, Vol. 167, 1969, P. 319.
21 Romer, A. S., p. 218.
22 Kelso, A. J., Physical Anthropology, 2nd Ed., New York: J. B. Lippincott, 1974, p. 142.
23 Campbell, C.B.G., Science, Vol. 153, 1966, P. 436.

 

[DavLaurel]

"But for Adam no suitable helper was found."

This is truly bizarre. Are we to suppose God created male and female animals, yet supplied Adam with a mate only after noting his loneliness--and only after determining that no animal would make a suitable companion? That displays an amazing lack of foresight on the part of God. And doesn't this imply that Adam, as originally created, had no sex organs himself?

 

[Reba]

"But for Adam no suitable helper was found."

This is truly bizarre. Are we to suppose God created male and female animals, yet supplied Adam with a mate only after noting his loneliness--and only after determining that no animal would make a suitable companion? That displays an amazing lack of foresight on the part of God. ..

IMO, God knew that Adam would need a woman companion but God wanted Adam to also realize that for himself. During the process of naming the animals, Adam realized that he had companion for himself. Also, God made Eve specifically for Adam, from Adam. The animals were not paired up so specifically. Man was not just one of the animals. Man and Woman's creation was different from the animals', and their pairing as lifetime companions was unique. One Man, one Woman.

That is my theory.

And doesn't this imply that Adam, as originally created, had no sex organs himself?

No, it doesn't imply that. God designed Adam perfectly and completely, as a full adult male, and Eve was a perfect and complete adult female.

 

[RedFox]

The Origin of Mammals
by Duane Gish, Ph.D.

According to the neo-Darwinian interpretation of evolution, all living forms have arisen from a single form of life by slow gradual changes. Thus, the time between the origin of life and the abrupt appearance in the fossil record of the many complex invertebrate forms of life is now estimated to have been nearly three billion years. The time required for one of these invertebrates to evolve into the vertebrates, or fishes, has been estimated at about 100 million years, and it is believed that the evolution of the fish into an amphibian required about 30 million years. The essence of the neo-Darwinian view is the slow gradual evolution of one plant or animal into another by the gradual accumulation of micromutations through natural selection of favored variants.

If this view of evolution is true, the fossil record should produce an enormous number of transitional forms. Natural history museums should be overflowing with undoubted intermediate forms. About 250,000 fossil species have been collected and classified. These fossils have been collected at random from rocks that are supposed to represent all of the geological periods of earth history. Applying evolution theory and the laws of probability, most of these 250,000 species should represent transitional forms. Thus, if evolution theory is true, there should be no doubt, question, or debate as to the fact of evolution.

How is Gish applying evolution theory and the laws of probability to figure out the percentage of the fossils that are transitional? What meaning of "transitional" is he using? Transitioning from what to what? I could divide the species known from fossils in half by labelling species, alternating over time as transitional and nontransitional like this: NTNTNTNTNTNTN. That meaning of "transitional" would automatically make half of the fossils transtional. The status as a transitional fossil is in reference to some other fossils or to living species. Gish haven't given us the references. Which fossils are the transitional ones between which other fossils? If the reference points are the earliest life forms and modern ones, then that would make all fossils, known and undiscovered ones, transitional between the earliest life forms and modern ones.

Such is not the case at all, however. The fossil record was actually an embarrassment to Darwin, and some paleontologists are willing to admit that it looks even worse from an evolutionary point of view today than it did in Darwin's time.1 Some even appear to admit that there is, in fact, little, if any, evidence for transitional forms in the fossil record. Kitts, for example, states, "Despite the bright promise that paleontology provides a means of 'seeing' evolution, it has presented some nasty difficulties for evolutionists, the most notorious of which is the presence of 'gaps' in the fossil record. Evolution requires intermediate forms between species and paleontology does not provide them." More and more paleontologists seem to be coming to the point where they are now willing to admit that this is indeed the case, and are seeking to devise a mechanism for evolution that will tolerate, even predict, systematic gaps in the fossil record.

Evolution doesn't require all intermediate species to be fossilized. Fossilization is a seperate thing from evolution. Evolution works with genetics and environmental factors favorable to reproductive success. Fossilization is about environmental factors favoring minerialization of remains.

Gaps are to be expected. Fossils are, by nature, discrete. They're each from an individual organism. Fossilization is a rare thing to happen because most organisms decay away before fossilization can happen.

Other evolutionists remain steadfastly wedded to neo-Darwinism. They argue that there are examples of transitional forms in the fossil record, and that even if examples of gradual change are few, these few examples eliminate the necessity of seeking mechanisms for evolution other than neo-Darwinism. The examples most often cited are the reptile-to-bird transition (Archaeopteryx is the sole suggested intermediate), the so-called horse series, and the reptile-mammal transition.

Archaeopteryx isn't the only intermediate for the reptile-bird transition found. Some of the examples in my post above could also be intermediates.

Of the latter, Olson has said "The reptilian-mammalian transition has by far the finest record of showing the origin of a new class."2 Others claim that there are forms that stand perfectly on the reptilian-mammalian boundary.
It is interesting to note that while claiming that intermediate forms for the reptile-to-mammal transition have been found, some evolutionists admit that no immediate ancestors for any of the 32 mammalian orders have been discovered. Thus, George Gaylord Simpson, after stating that nowhere in the world is there any trace of a fossil that would close the considerable gap between Hyracotherium ("Eohippus"), which evolutionists assume was the first horse, and its supposed ancestral order Condylarthra, goes on to say "This is true of all the thirty-two orders of mammals…The earliest and most primitive known members of every order already have the basic ordinal characters, and in no case is an approximately continuous sequence from one order to another known. In most cases the break is so sharp and the gap so large that the origin of the order is speculative and much disputed."

After the dinosaurs died out, there were lots of ecological niches left empty. I'm not surprised that the early forms haven't been found yet because after a mass extinction, the surviviors fill up the emptied niches rapidly in terms of geological time. With fossilization being rare, few fossils of those creatures should be expected.

The marine mammals thus abruptly appear in the fossil record as whales, dolphins, sea-cows, etc. For example, in one of Romer's concluding statements in his discussion of the subungulates (conies, elephants, sea-cows), he says "… conies, proboscideans, and sirenians were already distinct groups at the time when they first appear in the fossil record."4 Olson states that if we seek the ancestries of the marine mammals we run into a blank wall as far as intermediate stages between land and sea are concerned.5 His remark included the seals, dolphins and whales. There simply are no transitional forms in the fossil record between the marine mammals and their supposed land mammal ancestors.

Guess what? They've been found.

Romer suggests that whales may have descended from a primitive carnivore,6 although concerning the Sirenia (sea cows) and Cetacea (whales, dolphins) he admits that "We are ignorant of their terrestrial forebears and cannot be sure of their place of origin."7 It is interesting to note that many of the so-called "primitive" carnivorous mammals had about 40 teeth differentiated into incisors, canines, premolars and molars. The porpoises, dolphins, and whales, however, may possess teeth far in excess of that number (one porpoise has 300), and the teeth of these marine mammals are usually simple pegs or wedges and are not differentiated into incisors, canines, premolars and molars.
[/QUOTE]

Sure, it's interesting how their teeth had adapted to catching fish. Other whales developed baleen. Other species can have changes in their teeth. We're in the process of losing our wisdom teeth. Some people have none.

 

[RedFox]

Bats (of the order Chiroptera), the only flying mammal, are especially interesting. Evolutionists assume, of course, that bats must have evolved from a non-flying mammal. There is not one shred of evidence in the fossil record, however, to support such speculations, for, as Romer says, "Bats appear full fledged in both hemispheres in the Middle Eocene …"9
On the cover page of Science of December 9, 1966 (Vol. 154) appears a picture of what the author (Glenn L. Jepsen) of the accompanying article (pp. 1333-1339) describes as the oldest known bat. He reports that it was found in Early Eocene deposits, which are dated by evolutionists at about 50 million years. While stating that this bat possessed a few "primitive" characteristics, Jepsen states that it was fully developed, an "anatomically precocious" contemporary of Eohippus. Thus, bats appear fully-formed, with no trace of ancestors or intermediate forms, as a contemporary of Eohippus, supposedly the ancestor of horses. According to Jepsen this leaves many questions unanswered, including when, from what, where, and how did bats originate?

That's not surprising. The flying reptiles were gone, so the empty niches were filled quickly. Since birds came before bats, it's not surprising that there are many species of birds and some species of bats. Evolution after a mass extinction works rapidly to fill in the empty niches. So it's not surprising that we haven't found fossils with the characteristics you're thinking of.

It's easy to have large changes in the body with single mutations if those mutations are in the control genes that control many other genes for development. We've seen pictures of the one eyed kitten, two faced kittens and kittens with more than two ears. I've also seen pictures of people with the same sorts of thing. It shouldn't have been too hard to get creatures with skin between their fingers. Just turn off the gene that tells those cells to destroy themselves during development.

Horses comprise one of the most interesting mammalian groups as far as the question of origins is concerned. Almost all students are familiar with the story of horse "evolution," beginning with Hyracotherium (Eohippus), a dog-sized "horse" with four toes on the front feet, passing via straight-line evolution through three-toed varieties, and ending with the modern one-toed Equus. But while subscribing to the evolution of the horse in general, Birdsell proclaims that "Much of this story is incorrect …"10 Others hold the same view. George Gaylord Simpson, for example, has declared that several generations of students have been misinformed about the real meaning of the evolution of the horse.11 These authors believe that the evolution of the horse is much more complicated than usually portrayed, and is more like a series of bushes, perhaps, than like a tree.

Yeah, evolution isn't always so linear. It looks like a bush with a lot of branches. The same thing had been found in human evolution. For example, Paranthropus boisei was on a different now extinct branch.

To us the family tree of the horse appears to be merely a scenario put together from non-equivalent parts. Nowhere, for example, are there intermediate forms documenting transition from a non-horse ancestor (supposedly a condylarth) with five toes on each foot, to Hyracotherium with four toes on the front foot and three on the rear. Neither are there transitional forms between the four-toed Hyracotherium and the three-toed Miohippus, or between the latter, equipped with browsing teeth, and the three-toed Merychippus, equipped with high-crowned grazing teeth. Finally, the one-toed grazers, such as Equus, appear abruptly with no intermediates showing gradual evolution from the three-toed grazers.

Things aren't always that gradual. We've seen how mutations in control genes can lead to large differences. I guess that the change from browsing to grazing could have come around as a result of climate changes, which could result in evolution too rapid to be captuned in the fossil record. TThe Earth was warm during the Eocene, but was cooling down toward become colder in the Oligocene. The forest thined out from the centers of continents and by in the Oligocene, grasses spread from waterbanks to form the grasslands. The Oligocene wasn't as long as the Eocene, so I'm not surprised that we haven't uncovered all that you'd like to see.

Thus, Birdsell tells this story in the following way (note that when an evolutionist uses such terms as "sudden," "abrupt," or "rapid" with reference to transitions he is usually inferring that no transitional forms have been found): "The evolution of the foot mechanisms proceeded by rapid and abrupt changes rather than gradual ones. The transition from the form of foot shown by miniature Eohippus to larger consistently three-toed Miohippus was so abrupt that it even left no record in the fossil deposits… their foot structure [those of Miohippus] changed very rapidly to a three-toed sprung foot in which the pad disappeared and the two side toes became essentially functionless. Finally, in the Pliocene the line leading to the modern one-toed grazer went through a rapid loss of the two side toes on each foot."12 He then goes on to say that this evolution was not gradual but that it had proceeded by rapid jumps. Thus, the continuity required by theory cannot be documented from the fossil record.

Yeah, that was what I was saying. If we get lucky and find a fossil of those characteristics, it'd be party time.

A rather astounding and revealing fact is discovered when we compare North American ungulates to South American ungulates. ...Again we see a three-toed hoofed ungulate (Macrauchenia); a three-toed hoofed ungulate with reduced laterals (Diadiaphorus); and, in this case, a one-toed hoofed ungulate (Thoatherium) which, Romer says, seems even more horselike than any true horse, for it was single-toed with splints more reduced than those of modem equids.

Guess what? South America was isolated from its seperation out of Pangena to its connection to North America only 3 million years ago. So it's not suprising that there was independent evolution. The North American ungulates did not need to tell the South American ones to become one toed. Their species became like that because of similar things happening on both continents with the worldwide climate changes.

Do they not thus provide another nice, logical evolutionary series? No, not at all, for they do not occur in this sequence at all! Diadiaphorus, the three-toed ungulate with reduced lateral toes, and Thoatherium, the one-toed ungulate, were contemporaries in the Miocene epoch. Macrauchenia, with pes containing three full-sized toes, is not found until the Pliocene epoch, which followed the Miocene according to the geological column. In fact, it is said that the one-toed Thoatherium became extinct in the Miocene before the three-toed Macrauchenia made his appearance in the Pliocene.

Remember that evolution doesn't put everything in a line from past to present. It's more like a bush with many branches. Those branches can coexist. There were still some forests, so there were species in the forests and species on the grasslands.

Thus, if evolutionists would permit the fossil evidence and their usual assumptions concerning geological time to be their guide, they should suppose that in South America a one-toed ungulate gave rise to a three-toed ungulate with reduced lateral toes, which then gave rise to an ungulate with three full-sized toes. This is precisely the opposite of the supposed sequence of events that occurred with North American horses. I don't know any evolutionist who suggests such an evolutionary sequence of events, but why not? Perhaps it is because the three-toed to one-toed sequence for North American horses became so popularized in evolutionary circles that no one dare suggest the reverse transition. Of course there is no more real evidence for transitional forms in South America than there is in North America.

If that was what happened, it'd not be suprising. The same sort of thing had happened with animals adapting to life on land hundreds of millions years ago and then later returning to the water like whales did. The toe number and teeth seem to be adaptions to living on grasslands or in forests, which are less extreme changes and apparently happened over only tens of millions of years.
If it turns out that happened in South America, it's the scientists' fault for not looking into it, not evolution's fault. It's easy to get attached to clean linear progressions when things are more complex than that.

Evolution wasn't trying to make clean linear progressions. It works with what was available in the gene pool and within the limits of the environments and climates with no future goal in mind.

By the way, Gish is a creationist.