Well, you've convinced me, Shocker. Obviously, everyone knows that all organisms evolve in one long, smooth, entirely consistent timeline.

"The mean species turnover time (the time a species lasts before it is replaced) averages about 2-3 million years."
A mean is calculated by adding all the species turnover times and dividing them by the number of species you've counted. It doesn't mean they'll be between 2 and 3 million years.

Sorry, did that seem epileptic?

botheration, don't you think the difference between 3 million and *500* million years (and counting) is a little more than just normal variation?

Consider how much the planet has changed in the last 500 million years.
Evolution says mutations *will* occur randomly (whether you like it or not, velvet worms!) and the best adapted will survive.

Surely these 500 million year old species must have needed to adapt to all the changes taking place over that extensive time period?
Surely they must have had some random mutations that were better adaptations to these changing environmental conditions?
So why are they still the same today?

colinsett, I thought it would be clear from my last post that I have *no* "evangelical faith".

None. Whatsoever.

I question everybody and everything.
Including: *you*.

Which is why I point to evidence that doesn't fit with *your* belief.
This does not mean I'm supporting any *alternative* belief!
My God, believers are dumb!
Swap a Bible for a test tube, and they don't get any smarter.

So there's evidence for evolution (but not for *all* species), but does that mean it is the *only* thing that has ever occurred that would explain the variety of lifeforms on this planet?

The *one and only* explanation!

You're the ones "dismissing the evidence" of creatures that haven't changed one bit in 500 million years, the incredibly vast period of time between the first simple lifeforms and the first *complex* lifeforms, the latter's *sudden* appearance in great diversity during the Cambrian period, and the statements of qualified scientists who question the theory.

Like I said, "rabid demon-possessed epileptics".
It's impossible to discuss anything with "believers".

Thanks, Shockadelic, for your common sense and helping to expose the antireligious bent of Colinsett and many others.

Bushbasher,
I can’t say much about Denton’s second book, as I haven’t read it. But different reviewers seem to take different things out of it. But to say that Denton’s second book throws his first book ‘under a bus’ reveals what you desire to find in it.

This book does not repudiate what the author wrote, in scrupulous detail, in his first book. Rather, it elaborates on certain parts. To quote from the first line of Amazon.com’s review of Denton’s ‘Nature’s Destiny’, “…biologist Denton continues the assault on Darwinian science, especially the theories of evolution and natural selection, that he began in ‘Evolution: A Theory in Crisis.’”

AJ,
This brings us to the issue of ‘motive’. We’ve now seen Bushbasher’s not hiding his.

I never challenged your point about fundamentalists as it is essentially true. Fundamentalists don’t compromise on the clear teachings of their Book. Their bias is explicit. Biblical creationists don’t hide from this. With evolutionists, the bias is more implicit, but no less strict. I’ve heard over and over on this thread how evolution is a fact, come what may.

Has it never occurred to you that these two following phrases are contradictory?

(AJPhilips) “evolutionists are not fundamentalists because they would be willing to dump the theory of evolution if it was either, conclusively dis-proven; or if another theory started to look more plausible.”

(Bushbasher) “there are huge unresolved questions about evolution, but absolutely no crisis. evolution is a fact. honest scientists with integrity debate the nature of that fact, the mechanism and extent of evolution. but this debate has nothing in common with the conclusion …etc.”

This last statement I’ve heard many times and it always tickles me. Imagine if we were discussing the integrity of our local policeman. ‘There are huge unresolved questions about his integrity. We debate the nature and extent of his integrity and his method of employing it, but his integrity is a fact. There is no crisis.’

With regard to assessing the evidence, starting assumptions are going to influence much about how you interpret what you see. E.g. creationists point to great gaps in the fossil record that, to them, indicate the distinction between different types of created original life forms. Evolutionists try to justify the gaps.
http://www.creationontheweb.com/content/view/3832

Evolutionists use radiometric dating methods which allow for the great ages required for evolution. Creationists point to other dating methods that make long ages impossible.
http://www.creationontheweb.com/content/view/3837

Evolutionists point to comparitive anatomy as evidence for common decent. Creationists say finding such similarities are a prediction of one God using common design structures.
http://www.creationontheweb.com/content/view/3271

We all have all the same evidence but interpret it differently.

(And logically, demonstrating the sky’s not red, does indeed help show it may be blue.)

Colinsett,
A good test for your contention about the reliability of fossil lineage aiding oil exploration would be to see who could find oil better, an evolutionist or a creationist. I know of two experienced geologists involved in oil or mineral exploration in Australia who did not subscribe to the usual Lyellian, uniformatarian explanations for the geological column. Their careers were successful.

AJ,
My main motivation in this debate is to help point out that there is in fact a real debate occurring. For this reason, Dawkins and his followers should not be so brash and overconfident.

The web links that you directed me to earlier only confirms the battle, right there in the name of the website: “Exploring the Creation/Evolution Controversy.” This is quite a detailed website. If I could direct you to an equally thorough (probably more so) website that gives the point of view from the other side of the fence,
http://www.creationontheweb.com

Thanks, people, for the debate. It’s late and crissy holidays are over. But if anyone wants to get your teeth into a real juicy creation/evolution debate, I would direct you to this web debate conducted by the Sydney Morning Herald in 2005. All participants (from both sides, creation and evolution) were PhD holders in various scientific disciplines and very conversant on the subject.
http://www.creationontheweb.com/content/view/3466/

Dan,

There are more than 8000 species of ants,380 species of salamanders and 305 species described for cycads. In Australia alone there are 250 species of cicadas, 428 species of cockroaches, 195 species of dragonflies and 74 species of Velvet worms.

Please let us all know which ones haven't been mutating. I'd really like to know which of these species you happen to be referring to.

The others on your list are really nice examples of remnant endangered species with a far greater diversity in the fossil record than exist today and most share a remarkable feature, a lack of diversity of species and a generally low number of individuals with those species (hence the endangered tag). Why do you think that is? Do our intelligent designers just like them? Perhaps they're a pet project or noone to tell them to go extinct and so they hung around in the proverbial closet until discovery by the family that just moved in.

Shockers wrote: "botheration, don't you think the difference between 3 million and *500* million years (and counting) is a little more than just normal variation?"
Define "normal variation", and I'll answer this question. Common sense would dictate, though, that given that some viruses (HIV, for example) can evolve at a rate we measure in hours, there's got to be a correspondingly extremely slow rate on the other side of the continuum. So I'd say no, it doesn't sound like a little more than just normal variation to me.

"Surely these 500 million year old species must have needed to adapt to all the changes taking place over that extensive time period?"
Not if they already had appropriate attributes. You've listed the teensiest, tiniest proportion of all possible species. I'm not surprise that some species didn't actually need to vary over 500 million years. I'd be surprised if it turned out to be 1% of all species, but we're not talking about those kind of numbers.

"Surely they must have had some random mutations that were better adaptations to these changing environmental conditions?"
Why?

I no little about evolution, but your argument isn't logical to me. If you give me some science to go on, maybe I could get my head round it.