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Originally Posted by MMM
Also the fact that man did not exist when the dinosaurs did means that man had to come from somewhere AFTER the dinosaurs went extinct. Since you agree all life comes from life, where did man come from then?
Radiocarbon dating is only one way of determining a fossil's age, and indeed it is not perfect, but not nearly as inaccurate as certain factions would like you to believe.
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I still hold that fossil dating methods are inaccurate. Radiocarbon dating has the flaws I mentioned earlier. Geological stratum dating relies on carbon dating and the estimated age of fossils found in the strata. The age of those same fossils is determined by the estimated age of the stratum where they were found and carbon dating. The methods employ circular reasoning.
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Originally Posted by MMM
As a biology student you are surely familiar with homology. This is the similarity between different creatures due to shared ancestry. Homology explains things like why certain modern whales have hip bones when they don't have any purpose for a creature that doesn't walk.
The reason modern whales have hipbones is because their ancestor was a creature called Pakicetus who had more developed rear legs, and probably was a land-dweller. Why can't whales breathe underwater when other fish can? That's the line of ancestry that they came from.
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The "hip bones" or "pelvises" of whales differ in males and females and play a role in mating as well as carrying and birthing calves.
Whales are mammals, not fish. One of the characteristics of all mammals is that they have lungs. Therefore, whales cannot breathe under water, whereas fish -- which are characterized by gills -- can.
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Originally Posted by MMM
My example of viral evolution absolutely is an example of evolution on a small scale. And no, creature do not change into other creatures, it's a much slower process than that. So slow it's impossible to visualize without seeming fantastic.
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Yet evolution
is one creature changing into another. No matter how slowly the process occurrs, or how much time must elapse during the process, or how many "transitional forms" exist between steps, evolution is Creaure A becoming Creature B.
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Originally Posted by MMM
There is no evidence to suggest that every individual species existing on the planet today came straight through history each on an individual straight line, untouched by other creatures. They must have COME from somewhere. And that somewhere is a simple organism. You have to squeeze your eyes shut pretty tight not to see the connections.
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The Law of Entropy (the Second Law of Thermodynamics) demonstrates that order in nature always tends toward disorder. Also, the more simple an organism is, the easier it is for it to survive in nature. For example, the only creatures indigenous to the extreme climate of Earth's poles are simple lichens and bacteria. Single celled organisms would have no reason to change into anything more complex, which would have more difficulty surviving.
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Originally Posted by MMM
The theory of evolution will never be proven as absolute fact. This is true of most things in science. But it also hasn't been disproved, despite legitimate and continuing efforts.
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That is basically what I was driving at. Evolution has never been, and never will be, indisputably proven as fact. Regardless of how likely any person (or the scientific community) thinks evolution is, there will always be room for doubt. A person can be both itelligent and educated while still believing that evolution is not the answer.
Just to be clear, I'm not saying that evolution should be disregarded only because it cannot be proven. I'm saying that if someone disagrees with evolution, it does not necessarily follow that the person is ignorant or uninformed (an assumption that the vast majority of evolutionists make).