Creationism or Evolution?

[Godfather of Soul]

Ok, this thread is aimed at sorting out the beef between evolution and the myriad forms of intelligent design (which is anything that says that a higher power somehow created humankind etc.).  If you have information for or against, please post it here.  The rules are as follows:

1.  No personal attacks.  Attack the person's information and evidence, not the individual poster.
2.  All sources must be cited.
3.  Opinion is welcome, but arguments based on EVIDENCE are encouraged.
4.  Off-topic posts will be deleted.

If there are other rules that you want, please PM me and I will add them if they are relevant.

[GodsChosenSoldier]

With reference to reply #18 and #20 on the following thread http://immortal-technique.com/forum/index.php/topic,186.15.html .  Here on this thread, GOS and his cronies will provide substantial unambiguous and concrete evidence of intermediate species/creatures that must have existed for the Theory of evolution to have any sort of basis or credibility.

Just to quote from the other thread:

Evolution is strongly supported by massive amounts of evidence.

 Just because you cannot observe it happening in your lifetime does not mean that it isn't happening. If you want, I can start a thread and we can have a debate on the subject. The amount of research of the subject is vast, and the conclusions are nearly universal. The burden of proof is on those who dispute evolution to show how all of the evidence in FAVOR of it is actually wrong. So far, none have succeeded in doing that because there is just too much of it.

Show me the evidence of how simple organisms and substances can come together and produce something so complex such as DNA etc.
Show me the evidence that shows the intermediate creatures, the sea to land half-fish/half-reptile creatures, or the land to flying half-reptile/half-bird creatures.
The fact is you cant because no such thing ever existed. And if it did then there would literally be billions of fossils out there. There are literally huge gaps in the fossil records.

We already had a mammoth debate on the last board. You didnt have many answers back then and we could go around the same circle and you wont have many answers now. The only universal thing about the evolution theory is that it is a universal deceit.

Cant wait to see this MASSIVE amount of evidence.

Peace!

[JC]

The evidence for evolution is vast and I am just a carpenter and because it is so vast I propose we play quid pro quo. I will supply one piece of evidence, you debunk it and in turn offer your evidence and I will debunk it and so on. I will start with caruncles. Below is a short outline. The source for the information is at the bottom of the page. I anticipate you may attempt to tear me up for cutting and pasting but I can not put this scientific information in my own words as I may not explain it in good enough detail.   
I would also like to offer the idea that you are not susceptible to this information or any information regarding evolution. You have made up your mind and short of seeing evolution happen before your eyes nothing I can offer will convince you otherwise. However it will be fun to argue this with you. 

Reptiles and birds lay eggs, and the emerging young use either an "egg-tooth" to cut through a leathery keratinous eggshell (as found in lizards and snakes) or a specialized structure, called a caruncle, to crack their way out of a hard calcerous eggshell (as found in turtles and birds). Mammals evolved from a reptile-like ancestor, and placental mammals (like humans and dogs) have lost the egg-tooth and caruncle (and, yes, the eggshell). However, monotremes, such as the platypus and echidna, are primitive mammals that have both an egg-tooth and a caruncle, even though the monotreme eggshell is thin and leathery (Tyndale-Biscoe and Renfree 1987, p. 409). Most strikingly, during marsupial development, an eggshell forms transiently and then is reabsorbed before live birth. Though they have no need to hack through a hard egg-shell, several marsupial newborns (such as baby Brushtail possums, koalas, and bandicoots) retain a vestigial caruncle as a clear indicator of their reptilian, oviparous ancestry (Tyndale-Biscoe and Renfree 1987, p. 409).

http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/comdesc/section2.html

[Godfather of Soul]

http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/comdesc/section1.html#morphological_intermediates

-edit...go to the site to see the missing images.

All fossilized animals found should conform to the standard phylogenetic tree. If all organisms are united by descent from a common ancestor, then there is one single true historical phylogeny for all organisms. Similarly, there is one single true historical genealogy for any individual human. It directly follows that if there is a unique universal phylogeny, then all organisms, both past and present, fit in that phylogeny uniquely. Since the standard phylogenetic tree is the best approximation of the true historical phylogeny, we expect that all fossilized animals should conform to the standard phylogenetic tree within the error of our scientific methods.

Every node shared between two branches in a phylogeny or cladogram represents a predicted common ancestor; thus there are ~29 common ancestors predicted from the tree shown in Figure 1. Our standard tree shows that the bird grouping is most closely related to the reptilian grouping, with a node linking the two (A in Figure 1); thus we predict the possibility of finding fossil intermediates between birds and reptiles. The same reasoning applies to mammals and reptiles (B in Figure 1). However, we predict that we should never find fossil intermediates between birds and mammals.

It should be pointed out that there is no requirement for intermediate organisms to go extinct. In fact, all living organisms can be thought of as intermediate between adjacent taxa in a phylogenetic tree. For instance, modern reptiles are intermediate between amphibians and mammals, and reptiles are also intermediate between amphibians and birds. As far as macroevolutionary predictions of morphology are concerned, this point is trivial, as it is essentially just a restatement of the concept of a nested hierarchy.

However, a phylogenetic tree does make significant predictions about the morphology of intermediates which no longer exist or which have yet to be discovered. Each predicted common ancestor has a set of explicitly specified morphological characteristics, based on each of the most common derived characters of its descendants and based upon the transitions that must have occurred to transform one taxa into another (Cunningham et al. 1998; Futuyma 1998, pp. 107-108). From the knowledge of avian and reptilian morphology, it is possible to predict some of the characteristics that a reptile-bird intermediate should have, if found. Therefore, we expect the possibility of finding reptile-like fossils with feathers, bird-like fossils with teeth, or bird-like fossils with long reptilian tails. However, we do not expect transitional fossils between birds and mammals, like mammalian fossils with feathers or bird-like fossils with mammalian-style middle ear bones.
Confirmation:
Example 1: bird-reptiles

In the case just mentioned, we have found a quite complete set of dinosaur-to-bird transitional fossils with no morphological "gaps" (Sereno 1999), represented by Eoraptor, Herrerasaurus, Ceratosaurus, Allosaurus, Compsognathus, Sinosauropteryx, Protarchaeopteryx, Caudipteryx, Velociraptor, Sinovenator, Beipiaosaurus, Sinornithosaurus, Microraptor, Archaeopteryx, Rahonavis, Confuciusornis, Sinornis, Patagopteryx, Hesperornis, Apsaravis, Ichthyornis, and Columba, among many others (Carroll 1997, pp. 306-323; Norell and Clarke 2001; Sereno 1999; Xu et al. 1999; Xu et al. 2000; Xu et al. 2002). All have the expected possible morphologies (see Figure 3.1.1 from Prediction 3.1 for a few examples), including organisms such as Protarchaeopteryx, Caudipteryx, and the famous "BPM 1 3-13" (a dromaeosaur from China now named Cryptovolans pauli; Czerkas et al. 2002 ) which are flightless bipedal dinosaurs with modern-style feathers (Chen et al. 1998 ; Qiang et al. 1998; Norell et al. 2002). Additionally, several similar flightless dinosaurs have been found covered with nascent evolutionary precursors to modern feathers (branched feather-like integument indistinguishable from the contour feathers of true birds), including Sinornithosaurus ("Bambiraptor"), Sinosauropteryx, Beipiaosaurus, Microraptor, and an unnamed dromaeosaur specimen, NGMC 91, informally called "Dave" (Ji et al. 2001). The All About Archaeopteryx FAQ gives a detailed listing of the various characters of Archaeopteryx which are intermediate between reptiles and modern birds.

 We also have an exquisitely complete series of fossils for the reptile-mammal intermediates, ranging from the pelycosauria, therapsida, cynodonta, up to primitive mammalia (Carroll 1988, pp. 392-396; Futuyma 1998, pp. 146-151; Gould 1990; Kardong 2002, pp. 255-275). As mentioned above, the standard phylogenetic tree indicates that mammals gradually evolved from a reptile-like ancestor, and that transitional species must have existed which were morphologically intermediate between reptiles and mammals—even though none are found living today. However, there are significant morphological differences between modern reptiles and modern mammals. Bones, of course, are what fossilize most readily, and that is where we look for transitional species from the past. Osteologically, two major striking differences exist between reptiles and mammals: (1) reptiles have at least four bones in the lower jaw (e.g. the dentary, articular, angular, surangular, and coronoid), while mammals have only one (the dentary), and (2) reptiles have only one middle ear bone (the stapes), while mammals have three (the hammer, anvil, and stapes) (see Figure 1.4.1).

Early in the 20th century, developmental biologists discovered something that further complicates the picture. In the reptilian fetus, two developing bones from the head eventually form two bones in the reptilian lower jaw, the quadrate and the articular (see the Pelycosaur in Figure 1.4.1). Surprisingly, the corresponding developing bones in the mammalian fetus eventually form the anvil and hammer of the unique mammalian middle ear (also known more formally as the incus and malleus, respectively; see Figure 1.4.2) (Gilbert 1997, pp. 894-896). These facts strongly indicated that the hammer and anvil had evolved from these reptilian jawbones—that is, if common descent was in fact true. This result was so striking, and the required intermediates so outlandish, that many anatomists had extreme trouble imagining how transitional forms bridging these morphologies could have existed while retaining function. Young-earth creationist Duane Gish stated the problem this way:

    "All mammals, living or fossil, have a single bone, the dentary, on each side of the lower jaw, and all mammals, living or fossil, have three auditory ossicles or ear bones, the malleus, incus and stapes. ... Every reptile, living or fossil, however, has at least four bones in the lower jaw and only one auditory ossicle, the stapes. ... There are no transitional fossil forms showing, for instance, three or two jawbones, or two ear bones. No one has explained yet, for that matter, how the transitional form would have managed to chew while his jaw was being unhinged and rearticulated, or how he would hear while dragging two of his jaw bones up into his ear." (Gish 1978, p. 80)

 Gish was incorrect in stating that there were no transitional fossil forms, and he has been corrected on this gaffe numerous times since he wrote these words. However, Gish's statements nicely delineate the morphological conundrum at hand. Let's review the required evolutionary conclusion. During their evolution, two mammalian middle ear bones (the hammer and anvil, aka malleus and incus) were derived from two reptilian jawbones. Thus there was a major evolutionary transition in which several reptilian jawbones (the quadrate, articular, and angular) were extensively reduced and modified gradually to form the modern mammalian middle ear. At the same time, the dentary bone, a part of the reptilian jaw, was expanded to form the major mammalian lower jawbone. During the course of this change, the bones that form the hinge joint of the jaw changed identity. Importantly, the reptilian jaw joint is formed at the intersection of the quadrate and articular whereas the mammalian jaw joint is formed at the intersection of the squamosal and dentary (see Figure 1.4.1).

How could hearing and jaw articulation be preserved during this transition? As clearly shown from the many transitional fossils that have been found (see Figure 1.4.3), the bones that transfer sound in the reptilian and mammalian ear were in contact with each other throughout the evolution of this transition. In reptiles, the stapes contacts the quadrate, which in turn contacts the articular. In mammals, the stapes contacts the incus, which in turn contacts the malleus (see Figure 1.4.2). Since the quadrate evolved into the incus, and the articular evolved into the malleus, these three bones were in constant contact during this impressive evolutionary change. Furthermore, a functional jaw joint was maintained by redundancy—several of the intermediate fossils have both a reptilian jaw joint (from the quadrate and articular) and a mammalian jaw joint (from the dentary and squamosal). Several late cynodonts and Morganucodon clearly have a double-jointed jaw. In this way, the reptilian-style jaw joint was freed to evolve a new specialized function in the middle ear. It is worthy of note that some modern species of snakes have a double-jointed jaw involving different bones, so such a mechanical arrangement is certainly possible and functional.

Since Figure 1.4.3 was made, several important intermediate fossils have been discovered that fit between Morganucodon and the earliest mammals. These new discoveries include a complete skull of Hadrocodium wui (Luo et al. 2001) and cranial and jaw material from Repenomamus and Gobiconodon (Wang et al. 2001). These new fossil finds clarify exactly when and how the malleus, incus, and angular completely detached from the lower jaw and became solely auditory ear ossicles.

Recall that Gish stated: "There are no transitional fossil forms showing, for instance, three or two jawbones, or two ear bones" (Gish 1978, p. 80). Gish simply does not understand how gradual transitions happen (something he should understand, obviously, if he intends to criticize evolutionary theory). These fossil intermediates illustrate why Gish's statement is a gross mischaracterization of how a transitional form should look. In several of the known intermediates, the bones have overlapping functions, and one bone can be called both an ear bone and a jaw bone; these bones serve two functions. Thus, there is no reason to expect transitional forms with intermediate numbers of jaw bones or ear bones. For example, in Morganucodon, the quadrate (anvil) and the articular (hammer) serve as mammalian-style ear bones and reptilian jaw bones simultaneously. In fact, even in modern reptiles the quadrate and articular serve to transmit sound to the stapes and the inner ear (see Figure 1.4.2). The relevant transition, then, is a process where the ear bones, initially located in the lower jaw, become specialized in function by eventually detaching from the lower jaw and moving closer to the inner ear.

Example 3: human-apes

One of the most celebrated examples of transitional fossils is our collection of fossil hominids (see Figure 1.4.4 below). Based upon the consensus of numerous phylogenetic analyses, Pan troglodytes (the chimpanzee) is the closest living relative of humans. Thus, we expect that organisms lived in the past which were intermediate in morphology between humans and chimpanzees. Over the past century, many spectacular paleontological finds have identified such transitional hominid fossils.





        * (A) Pan troglodytes, chimpanzee, modern
        * (B) Australopithecus africanus, STS 5, 2.6 My
        * (C) Australopithecus africanus, STS 71, 2.5 My
        * (D) Homo habilis, KNM-ER 1813, 1.9 My
        * (E) Homo habilis, OH24, 1.8 My
        * (F) Homo rudolfensis, KNM-ER 1470, 1.8 My
        * (G) Homo erectus, Dmanisi cranium D2700, 1.75 My
        * (H) Homo ergaster (early H. erectus), KNM-ER 3733, 1.75 My
        * (I) Homo heidelbergensis, "Rhodesia man," 300,000 - 125,000 y
        * (J) Homo sapiens neanderthalensis, La Ferrassie 1, 70,000 y
        * (K) Homo sapiens neanderthalensis, La Chappelle-aux-Saints, 60,000 y
        * (L) Homo sapiens neanderthalensis, Le Moustier, 45,000 y
        * (M) Homo sapiens sapiens, Cro-Magnon I, 30,000 y
        * (N) Homo sapiens sapiens, modern

Example 4: legged fossil whales

    "Finally, and most glaringly obvious, if random evolution is true there must have been a large number of transitional forms between the mesonychid and the ancient whale: Where are they? It seems like quite a coincidence that of all the intermediate species that must have existed between the mesonychid and whale, only species that are very similar to the end species have been found. (Behe 1994)"

    - Michael J. Behe

    Anti-Darwinian, Intelligent Design conjecturist,
    writing against the validity of evolution less than a year before three transitional species between whales and land-dwelling Eocene Mesonychids were found.

Another impressive example of incontrovertible transitional forms predicted to exist by evolutionary biologists is the collection of land mammal-to-whale fossil intermediates. Whales, of course, are sea animals with flippers, lacking external hindlimbs. Since they are also mammals, the consensus phylogeny indicates that whales and dolphins evolved from land mammals with legs. In recent years, we have found several transitional forms of whales with legs, both capable and incapable of terrestrial locomotion (Bajpai and Gingerich 1998; Gingerich et al. 1983; Gingerich et al. 1990; Gingerich et al. 1994; Gingerich et al. 2001; Thewissen et al. 2001).

Example 5: legged seacows

 Seacows (manatees and dugongs) are fully aquatic mammals with flippers for forelimbs and no hindlimbs. Evolutionary theory predicts that seacows evolved from terrestrial ancestors with legs, and that thus we could find seacow intermediates with legs. Recently, a new transitional fossil has been found in Jamaica, a seacow with four legs (Domning 2001).

There are many other examples such as these—most can be found in the excellent Transitional Vertebrate Fossils FAQ.
Potential Falsification:

Any finding of a striking half-mammal, half-bird intermediate would be highly inconsistent with common descent. Many other examples of prohibited intermediates can be thought of, based on the standard tree (Kemp 1982; Stanley 1993; Carroll 1997; Chaterjee 1997).

A subtle, yet important point is that a strict cladistic evolutionary interpretation precludes the possibility of identifying true ancestors; only intermediates or transitionals can be positively identified. (For the purposes of this article, transitionals and intermediates are considered synonymous.) The only incontrovertible evidence for an ancestor-descendant relationship is the observation of a birth; obviously this is normally rather improbable in the fossil record. Intermediates are not necessarily the same as the exact predicted ancestors; in fact, it is rather unlikely that they would be the same. Simply due to probability considerations, the intermediates that we find will most likely not be the true ancestors of any modern species, but will be closely related to a predicted common ancestor. Therefore, the intermediates we do find will likely have additional derived characters besides the characters that identified them as intermediates. Because of these considerations, when a new and important intermediate fossil species is discovered, careful paleontologists will often note that the transitional species under study is probably not an ancestor, but rather is "representative of a common ancestor" or is an evolutionary "side-branch". The fewer extra dervied characters that an intermediate fossil has, the higher the probability that an intermediate fossil is an actual ancestor. For further clarification see prediction 5.4.
Prediction 1.5: Chronological order of intermediates

Fossilized intermediates should appear in the correct general chronological order based on the standard tree. Any phylogenetic tree predicts a relative chronological order of the evolution of hypothetical common ancestors and intermediates between these ancestors. For instance, in our current example, the reptile-mammal common ancestor (B) and intermediates should be older than the reptile-bird common ancestor (A) and intermediates.

Note, however, that there is some "play" within the temporal constraints demanded by any phylogeny, for two primary reasons: (1) the statistical confidence (or conversely, the error) associated with a phylogeny and its specific internal branches, and (2) the inherent resolution of the fossil record (ultimately stemming from the vagaries of the fossilization process). As mentioned earlier, most phylogenetic trees have some branches with high confidence, because they are well-supported by the data, and other branches in which we have less confidence, because they are statistically less significant and poorly supported by the data. See also the caveats associated with phylogenetic analysis.

When evaluating the geological order of fossils, remember that once a transitional species appears there is no reason why it must become extinct and be replaced. For instance, some organisms have undergone little change in as much as 100 to 200 million years in rare cases. Some familiar examples are the "living fossils", such as the coelacanth, which has persisted for approximately 80 million years; the bat, which has not changed much in the past 50 million years; and even the modern tree squirrel, which has not changed in 35 million years. In fact, paleontological studies indicate the average longevity of 21 living families of vertebrates is approximately 70 million years (Carroll 1997, p. 167).

Furthermore, the fossil record is demonstrably incomplete; species appear in the fossil record, then disappear, then reappear later. An exceptional instance is the coelacanth, which last appeared in the fossil record 80 million years ago, yet it is alive today. During the Cretaceous (a critical time in bird evolution), there is a 50 million-year gap in the diplodocoidean record, greater than a 40 million-year gap in the pachycephalosaurian record, greater than a 20 million-year gap in the trodontidiae, and about a 15 million-year gap in the oviraptosaurian fossil record (both of these last two orders of dinosaurs are maniraptoran coelurosaurian theropods, which figure significantly in the evolution of birds). During the Jurassic, there is a 40 million-year gap in the fossil record of the heterodontosauridae (Sereno 1999). Most organisms do not fossilize, and there is no reason why a representative of some species must be found in the fossil record. As every graduate student in scientific research knows (or eventually learns, perhaps the hard way), arguments based upon negative evidence are very weak scientific arguments, especially in the absence of proper positive controls. Thus, based on the fossil remains of modern species and the known gaps in the current paleontological records of extinct species, the observation of transitional species "out of order" by 40 million years should be fairly common. This degree of "play" in the fossil record is actually rather minor, considering that the fossil record of life spans between 2 to 3.8 billion years and that of multicellular organisms encompasses a total of ~660 million years. An uncertainty of 40 million years is equivalent to about a 1% or 6% relative error, respectively—rather small overall.

Confirmation:

The reptile-bird intermediates mentioned above date from the Upper Jurassic and Lower Cretaceous (about 150 million years ago), whereas pelycosauria and therapsida (reptile-mammal intermediates) are older and date from the Carboniferous and the Permian (about 250 to 350 million years ago, see the Geological Time Scale). This is precisely what should be observed if the fossil record matches the standard phylogenetic tree.

The most scientifically rigorous method of confirming this prediction is to demonstrate a positive corellation between phylogeny and stratigraphy, i.e. a positive corellation between the order of taxa in a phylogenetic tree and the geological order in which those taxa first appear and last appear (whether for living or extinct intermediates). For instance, within the error inherent in the fossil record, prokaryotes should appear first, followed by simple multicellular animals like sponges and starfish, then lampreys, fish, amphibians, reptiles, mammals, etc., as shown in Figure 1. Contrary to the erroneous (and unreferenced) opinions of some anti-evolutionists (e.g. Wise 1994, p. 225-226), studies from the past ten years addressing this very issue have confirmed that there is indeed a positive corellation between phylogeny and stratigraphy, with statistical significance (Benton 1998; Benton and Hitchin 1996; Benton and Hitchin 1997; Benton et al. 1999; Benton et al. 2000; Benton and Storrs 1994; Clyde and Fisher 1997; Hitchin and Benton 1997; Huelsenbeck 1994; Norell and Novacek 1992a; Norell and Novacek 1992b; Wills 1999). Using three different measures of phylogeny-stratigraphy correlation [the RCI, GER, and SCI (Ghosts 2.4 software, Wills 1999)], a high positive correlation was found between the standard phylogenetic tree portrayed in Figure 1 and the stratigraphic range of the same taxa, with very high statistical significance (P < 0.0001) (this work, Ghosts input file available upon request).

As another specific example, an early analysis published in Science by Mark Norell and Michael Novacek (Norell and Novacek 1992b) examined 24 different taxa of vertebrates (teleosts, amniotes, reptiles, synapsids, diapsids, lepidosaurs, squamates, two orders of dinosaurs, two orders of hadrosaurs, pachycephalosaurs, higher mammals, primates, rodents, ungulates, artiodactyls, ruminants, elephantiformes, brontotheres, tapiroids, chalicotheres, Chalicotheriinae, and equids). For each taxa, the phylogenetic position of known fossils was compared with the stratigraphic position of the same fossils. A positive correlation was found for all of the 24 taxa, 18 of which were statistically significant. Note that the correlation theoretically could have been negative. A statistically significant negative correlation would indicate that, in general, organisms rooted deeply in the phylogeny are found in more recent strata—a strong macroevolutionary inconsistency. However, no negative correlations were observed.

As a third example, Michael Benton and Rebecca Hitchin published a more recent, greatly expanded, and detailed stratigraphic analysis of 384 published cladograms of various multicellular organisms (Benton and Hitchin 1997). Using the three measures of congruence between the fossil record and phylogeny mentioned above (the RCI, GER, and SCI), these researchers observed values "skewed so far from a normal distribution [i.e. randomness] that they provide evidence for strong congruence of the two datasets [fossils and cladograms]." Furthermore, Benton and Hitchin's analysis was extremely conservative, since they made no effort to exclude cladograms with poor resolution or to exclude cladograms with very small numbers of taxa. Including both of these types of cladograms will add confounding random elements to the analysis and will decrease the apparent concordance between stratigraphy and cladograms. Even so, the results were overall extremely statistically significant (P < 0.0005). As the authors comment in their discussion:

    "... the RCI and SCI metrics showed impressive left-skewing; the majority of cladograms tested show good congruence between cladistic and stratigraphic information. Cladists and stratigraphers may breathe easy: the cladistic method appears, on the whole, to be finding phylogenies that may be close to the true phylogeny of life, and the sequence of fossils in the rocks is not misleading. ... it would be hard to explain why the independent evidence of the stratigraphic occurrence of fossils and the patterns of cladograms should show such striking levels of congruence if the fossil record and the cladistic method were hopelessly misleading." (Benton and Hitchin 1997, p. 889)

Additionally, if the correlation between phylogeny and stratigraphy is due to common descent, we would expect the correlation to improve over longer geological time frames (since the relative error associated with the fossil record decreases). This is in fact observed (Benton et al. 1999). We also would expect the correlation to improve, not to get worse, as more fossils are discovered, and this has also been observed (Benton and Storrs 1994).
Potential Falsification:

It would be highly inconsistent if the chronological order were reversed in the reptile-bird and reptile-mammal example. More generally, the strongest falsification of this prediction would be the finding that there was a negative correlation between stratigraphy and the phylogenetic tree that describes the genealogical relatedness of all living organisms. Even the finding that there was no overall correlation, neither positive nor negative, between stratigraphy and the consensus phylogeny of the major taxa would be very problematic for the theory of common descent. In addition, the observed correlation could decrease over longer time frames or as we acquire more paleontological data—but neither is the case (Benton et al. 1999; Benton and Storrs 1994).

Based on the high confidence in certain branches of phylogenetic trees, some temporal constraints are extremely rigid. For example, we should never find mammalian or avian fossils in or before Devonian deposits, before reptiles had diverged from the amphibian tetrapod line. This excludes Precambrian, Cambrian, Ordovician, and Silurian deposits, encompassing 92% of the earth's geological history and 65% of the biological history of multicellular organisms. Even one incontrovertible find of any pre-Devonian mammal, bird, or flower would shatter the theory of common descent (Kemp 1982; Carroll 1988; Stanley 1993; Chaterjee 1997).

[Godfather of Soul]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transitional_fossil

Misconceptions

It is commonly stated by anti-evolutionists that there are no known transitional fossils. This position is based on a misunderstanding of the nature of what represents a transitional feature. A common creationist argument is that no fossils are found with partially functional features. It is entirely plausible, however, that a complex feature with one function can adapt a wholly different function through evolution. The precursor to, for example, a wing, might originally have only been meant for gliding, trapping flying prey, and/or mating display. Nowadays, wings can still have all of these functions, but they are also used in active flight.

Although transitional fossils elucidate the evolutionary transition of one life-form to another, they only exemplify snapshots of this process. Due to the special circumstances required for preservation of living beings, only a very small percentage of all life-forms that ever have existed can be expected to be discovered. Thus, the transition itself can only be illustrated and corroborated by transitional fossils, but it will never be known in detail. However, progressing research and discovery managed to fill in several gaps and continues to do so.

The theory of punctuated equilibrium developed by Stephen J. Gould and Niles Eldredge is often mistakenly drawn into the discussion of transitional fossils. This theory, however, pertains only to well-documented transitions within taxa or between closely related taxa over a geologically short period of time. These transitions, usually traceable in the same geological outcrop, often show small jumps in morphology between periods of morphological stability. To explain these jumps, Gould and Eldredge envisaged comparatively long periods of genetic stability separated by periods of rapid evolution.

The 'Missing Link'

A popular term to designate transitional forms with is "the missing link". The term is especially used in the regular media, but inaccurate and confusing. This is partly because it implies that there was a single link missing to complete the picture, which now has been discovered. In reality, the continuing discovery of more and more transitional fossils is further adding to our knowledge of evolutionary transitions. The term probably arose in the 19th century where the awaited discovery of a "missing link" between humans and so-called "lower" animals was considered to be the final proof of evolution. The Australopithecus afarensis fossil (more commonly known as "Lucy") is seen as a key transitional fossil.

[Godfather of Soul]

http://atheism.about.com/library/FAQs/evolution/blfaq_evolution_evidence16.htm

Fossils that show intermediate characteristics are generally called transitional fossils. Transitional fossils are fossils that have characteristics that are intermediate in nature to organisms that existed both prior to it and after it. As such, transitional fossils are strongly suggestive of evolution.

There are many examples of transitional fossils in the fossil record. Examples include large-scale transitions such as from reptiles to birds (like the controversial archaeopteryx) and from reptiles to mammals, as well as more detailed transitions, such as those among the many hominids or the development of horses. The fact that, despite the rarity of fossilization, we have a wealth of transitional fossil data and that the fossil data generally conforms to the phylogenetic tree is strongly supportive of the idea of evolution.

Mention transitional fossils to a creationist and you will most likely get a dirty look. Transitional fossils are frequently misunderstood, and like macroevolution, creationists tend to redefine the term to suit their purposes. As explained above, transitional fossils are fossils that have characteristics that are intermediate between other organisms. If the transitional fossil can be dated to a time between the organisms it is an intermediate to, it is strongly suggestive of an evolutionary relationship between the organisms.

Creationists will critique transitional fossils in a variety of ways. They might claim that a transitional fossil is not proof of an evolutionary relationship since you can't prove that it is, in fact, an ancestor of any later organism. They are right. We can't prove that. As has been explained, transitional fossils are suggestive of an evolutionary relationship - they are not proof of it. Once again we run into problems with creationists looking for proof when science deals rather with supporting evidence.

Without actually going back in time and watching the birth/hatching/etc. of each successive organism in an evolutionary chain, we can not "prove" that an evolutionary relationship exists. Even if you accept evolution, you can't be sure some organism is actually an ancestor of existing species - it might be a side-branch on the evolutionary tree that died out.

However, transitional fossils are just one more piece of evidence that is suggestive and supportive of evolution. Even if a transitional fossil is a side-branch, it still shows that creatures with intermediate characteristics existed, and this indicates the strong possibility that a similar organism could exist that is an ancestor of an existing species. When you consider that such transitionals fall into the phylogenetic tree well within the area you would expect them to, it is a nicely verified prediction of the general theory of evolution and further support for the theory.

Creationists will also sometimes state that a transitional fossil is not, in fact, a transitional. For example, with archaeopteryx, some have claimed that it is not a transitional between reptiles and birds and instead assert that it is a true bird. Unfortunately, this is another example of a creationist lie or distortion. If you look at the evidence it is clear that archaeopteryx has characteristics in common with reptiles that modern birds do not posses. Archaeopteryx is a transitional fossil. We can't say for sure it is actually an ancestor of modern birds, but as explained, that is not a significant issue.

In general, creationist arguments that transitionals are not real transitionals are based on their ignorance of what a transitional fossil is or simply on outright distortions of fact. It is not that there isn't room for debate on the nature or categorization of various fossils, because there is always room for debate. However, creationist debates are almost never informed debate and as such do not accomplish much.

Finally, creationists will sometimes belabor the fact that there are gaps in the fossil record. Even if we have a transitional fossil between two groups of organisms that is suggestive of an evolutionary relationship, creationists will demand intermediaries between the intermediaries. And, if those are found, creationists will want intermediaries between the new organisms. It's a no-win situation. Since creationists try to put forth the strawman that you need "absolute proof" of an evolutionary relationship to accept it, they insist that if we do not have a record of every single organism in the chain we can't say some organism is an ancestor of another.

This is a useless and spurious criticism. I have already shown how we cannot say for certain that any particular fossilized organism was definitively in the evolutionary history of any other organism. But that doesn't matter. The fossil record is still extraodinarily suggestive of evolution in general, and specific fossils are suggestive of evolutionary relationships between specific organisms. We can make very well informed, provisional conclusions (this is science) as to the evolutionary history of many organisms. And these conclusions are supported by the evidence; in many cases by both fossil and nonfossil evidence.

Summary of Fossil Evidence

While the fossil record is certainly not "complete" (fossilization is a rare event, so this is to be expected), there is still a wealth of fossil information to be considered. If you examine the fossil evidence, you see that the fossil record uniformly supports the idea of common descent. The general order of the fossil record, the correspondence of the order of organisms found in the fossil record with the order suggested by examining living organisms, the correspondence of the fossil record to the phylogenetic tree (including transitional organisms), and the biogeography of the fossil record all support the idea of common descent. Since the fossil record is a record of historical organisms, it strongly suggests a process of evolution occurring throughout history.

[GodsChosenSoldier]

The evidence for evolution is vast and I am just a carpenter and because it is so vast I propose we play quid pro quo. I will supply one piece of evidence, you debunk it and in turn offer your evidence and I will debunk it and so on. I will start with caruncles. Below is a short outline. The source for the information is at the bottom of the page. I anticipate you may attempt to tear me up for cutting and pasting but I can not put this scientific information in my own words as I may not explain it in good enough detail.
I would also like to offer the idea that you are not susceptible to this information or any information regarding evolution. You have made up your mind and short of seeing evolution happen before your eyes nothing I can offer will convince you otherwise. However it will be fun to argue this with you.

Reptiles and birds lay eggs, and the emerging young use either an "egg-tooth" to cut through a leathery keratinous eggshell (as found in lizards and snakes) or a specialized structure, called a caruncle, to crack their way out of a hard calcerous eggshell (as found in turtles and birds). Mammals evolved from a reptile-like ancestor, and placental mammals (like humans and dogs) have lost the egg-tooth and caruncle (and, yes, the eggshell). However, monotremes, such as the platypus and echidna, are primitive mammals that have both an egg-tooth and a caruncle, even though the monotreme eggshell is thin and leathery (Tyndale-Biscoe and Renfree 1987, p. 409). Most strikingly, during marsupial development, an eggshell forms transiently and then is reabsorbed before live birth. Though they have no need to hack through a hard egg-shell, several marsupial newborns (such as baby Brushtail possums, koalas, and bandicoots) retain a vestigial caruncle as a clear indicator of their reptilian, oviparous ancestry (Tyndale-Biscoe and Renfree 1987, p. 409).

http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/comdesc/section2.html

Or do you mean that you don’t really understand it but because it may have been written fairly articulately, uses a whole host of anthropologetic terms and just generally sounds clever you assume it’s the absolute truth.  See that’s what most atheists are guilty of.  Lots of non-believers I have spoken to say the exact same thing.  They don’t even know the basics of evolution (I’m not talking about providing evidence of intermediary creatures).  Just like its wrong to blindly follow any religion, its also a huge mistake to assume that there’s a whole array of clever people out there who have done the research and because their ‘theory’ is always pushed in books, tv, and journals and is as mainstream as it gets it must be true.  Kind of like those sheeple who watch the news and automatically assume that their favourite newsreader would never lie so it must be true.

To be honest, I’m not interested in reading reams of waffle.  Im interested in concise points backed up by evidence.  If I was then I wouldn’t be on here discussing this, I’d be sitting down reading a 500 page super ambigious Richard Dawkins ‘novel’.

JC, GOS -
Look, im simply not going to read all that, I don’t have the time.  And even if I did, surely reading it wont suffice, its something that needs to be studied.  That’s like me copying and pasting all aspects of the sharia and saying ‘look there’s proof of God’s divine law is the only law for man’ – You would have to study it before you could even start to think about replying.

What I have done is scan read your posts and picked out bits that i can address now without further lengthy study required.

The Australopithecus afarensis fossil (more commonly known as "Lucy") is seen as a key transitional fossil.

It wasnt ever a transitional fossil,it was proved fake years ago.  Simply an extinct type of ape, it was always an ape and nothing else. 

All your articles that you have posted continuously refer to how ‘creationists’ or ‘anti-evoltionists’ always claim this doubt and always claim that concern.  Its nonsense, a large number of evolutionists themselves have been worried and concerned about what they eventually realise after literally devoting most of their lives to researching evolution

Evolutionist - Lord Zuckerman - Beyond the Ivory Tower - Wrote - "The australopithecine skull is in fact so overwhelmingly simian as opposed to human (figure 5) that the contrary proposition could be equated to an assertion that black is white." – Solly Zuckerman, BEYOND THE IVORY TOWER, p.78 AND he concluded that Australopithecus was merely an ordinary species of monkey and very definitely did not walk upright.

Evolutionist - Charles E Oxnard - The Place of Australopithecines in Human Evolution: Grounds for Doubt - Wrote - that the structure of the Australopithecus skeleton resembled that of present-day orangutans.vol. 258, p. 389.

Evolutionist - Derek Ager - The Nature of the Fossil Record", Proceedings of the British Geological Association, - Wrote - The point emerges that if we examine the fossil record in detail, whether at the level of orders or of species, we find-over and over again-not gradual evolution, but the sudden explosion of one group at the expense of another. P.133.


Your teacher - Evolutionist - Charles Darwin said in the ORigin of Species - If my theory be true, numberless intermediate varieties, linking most closely all of the species of the same group together must assuredly have existed... Consequently evidence of their former existence could be found only amongst fossil remains.P179.
and then said - "…Why, if species have descended from other species by fine gradations, do we not everywhere see innumerable transitional forms? Why is not all nature in confusion, instead of the species being, as we see them, well defined?… But, as by this theory innumerable transitional forms must have existed, why do we not find them embedded in countless numbers in the crust of the earth?… But in the intermediate region, having intermediate conditions of life, why do we not now find closely-linking intermediate varieties? This difficulty for a long time quite confounded me."

Look into how evolutionists are starting to now realise that they cannot prove the original gradual evolution approach as pioneered by Darwin and are now resorting to a new theory called punctuated Equilibirum (sp?) which admits theres no evidence for gradual changes but now claims that sudden changes took effect.  The fossil records prove this (by lack of evidence for gradual evoliution) thats why they are starting to back peddle and constantly thinking up new theories.

This then begs the question, if they deep inside know its flawed, why do they then still posess this dogmatic thinking and mass evolutionist indoctrination, perhaps it is as God says: "In their hearts is a disease (of doubt and hypocrisy) and Allah has increased their disease." (2:10)

http://atheism.about.com/library/FAQs/evolution/blfaq_evolution_evidence16.htm
Finally, creationists will sometimes belabor the fact that there are gaps in the fossil record. Even if we have a transitional fossil between two groups of organisms that is suggestive of an evolutionary relationship, creationists will demand intermediaries between the intermediaries. And, if those are found, creationists will want intermediaries between the new organisms. It's a no-win situation. Since creationists try to put forth the strawman that you need "absolute proof" of an evolutionary relationship to accept it, they insist that if we do not have a record of every single organism in the chain we can't say some organism is an ancestor of another.

This is a useless and spurious criticism. I have already shown how we cannot say for certain that any particular fossilized organism was definitively in the evolutionary history of any other organism. But that doesn't matter. The fossil record is still extraodinarily suggestive of evolution in general,

That is an absolutely shocking article.  We dont have the evidence but the fossil record is still extraordinarily suggestive of evolution in general?!?!?! Yes in General with huge gaps missing!! wtf! the dude's having a laugh, what a joke.

I think thats enough for now. Ive provided information from evolutionists complete with source/references.  Personal take - I've researched this for a while now. I've only been a Muslim really now for a couple of years.  Im stil open to evidence of evolution but theres simply nothing there and its all a big fallacy.  I'll try and get some time over the weekend to post up some more information and perhaps reply to some of the other copy and paste jobs that you did. e.g.  The collection of fossil hominids that you provided, again they were all either the various thousand of species of apes that previously existed and are now extinct.  Fossil records prove that men have been men and apes have been apes.  Some of the skulls you showed there simply belonged to human races that lived not long ago and then suddenly disappeard, they were never apes.  large parts of human communities that live today have th same charactersitics of the extinct men.

Albert Einstein - probably the greatest genius of our age - devout scientist who believed in God - said "..science without religion is lame."

[Godfather of Soul]

Then the debate is over if you will not read the actual information posted.  You requested specific information and then when it is provided you refuse to address it.  This is not a simple subject that can be settled with small posts and no scientific data.

Your justification for why you will not read the material and the parallel that you draw with sharia are not relevant.  We are not debating Sharia, and if we were, I would expect you to put up things that you felt were relevant from it.  Go read a Dawkins novel, he is an expert in the field and could precisely explain things better than I.

It wasnt ever a transitional fossil,it was proved fake years ago.  Simply an extinct type of ape, it was always an ape and nothing else.

Ok...we are apes.  By extension, any transitional fossil leading or related to us would be an ape also. 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ape

the family Hominidae consisting of gorillas, chimpanzees, orangutans, and humans,[1][2] collectively known as the "great apes".

"The australopithecine skull is in fact so overwhelmingly simian as opposed to human (figure 5) that the contrary proposition could be equated to an assertion that black is white." – Solly Zuckerman, BEYOND THE IVORY TOWER, p.78 AND he concluded that Australopithecus was merely an ordinary species of monkey and very definitely did not walk upright.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Australopithecus

That should thoroghly undermine his argument.

"…Why, if species have descended from other species by fine gradations, do we not everywhere see innumerable transitional forms? Why is not all nature in confusion, instead of the species being, as we see them, well defined?… But, as by this theory innumerable transitional forms must have existed, why do we not find them embedded in countless numbers in the crust of the earth?… But in the intermediate region, having intermediate conditions of life, why do we not now find closely-linking intermediate varieties? This difficulty for a long time quite confounded me."

Funny, natural selection would show that they would fall to the wayside.  Not everything becomes a fossil either.  That gap doesn't disprove evolution, it just shows that clearly transitional fossils are not common.

Although the intelligence of these early hominines was likely no more sophisticated than modern apes, the bipedal stature is the key evidence which distinguishes the group from previous primates who are quadrupeds.

Now that we're done talking about australopithecenes, lets move onto other hominids.



http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hominidae

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homo_erectus

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homo_ergaster

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neanderthal

That is ample evidence there.  Please show me how all of those are fakes.  Those are genetic relatives to Homo Sapiens.

The point emerges that if we examine the fossil record in detail, whether at the level of orders or of species, we find-over and over again-not gradual evolution, but the sudden explosion of one group at the expense of another

That does not mean that evolution is not happening...it just happens fast in some cases, more slowly in others.  Environmental pressures determine the rate of evolution.

Look into how evolutionists are starting to now realise that they cannot prove the original gradual evolution approach as pioneered by Darwin and are now resorting to a new theory called punctuated Equilibirum (sp?) which admits theres no evidence for gradual changes but now claims that sudden changes took effect.  The fossil records prove this (by lack of evidence for gradual evoliution) thats why they are starting to back peddle and constantly thinking up new theories.

The nature of science is that it changes and evolves.  Physics used to work on a Newtonian model but quantum mechanics, general and special relativity CHANGED it.  It doesn't mean that physics is irrelevant but that understanding changes.

Because there are gaps does not prove that it is not correct.  It is not complete, but we have shown that your arguments can be taken apart and that your three quoted scientists are far outnumbered by the thousands of evolutionary biologists who can better argue with you than I.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evolutionary_biology

Look at the list at the bottom.

And if you are going to "refute" our evidence than you need to actually read it.

[JC]

GCS,

I have read Dawkins and Darwin. My point oh great assumer, is to say that I do not deal in these scientific terms on a daily basis as I am a carpenter therefore I do not have the ability to completely articulate the subject. You have assumed that evolution is not real because you "don't have time" to read the material, and because your dogma probably doesn't permit it. Then you attempt to compare my belief in the truth of this theory to blind faith. I can see where you could draw the comparison if I didn't bother to find out more about the subject. But since I have a thirst for knowledge about evolutionary biology that alone proves that my belief is not "blind" maybe you could argue that its based on false information but certainly not blind. I now see that arguing this with you is pointless because your response to GOS is to just deny his points. I also do not see anything wrong with admitting one is not an expert in something. Just curious are you professing to be an expert?

[JC]

GCS,

I usually do not reply to petty insults when debating or conversing but seeing your post where you say "Or do you mean that you don’t really understand it but because it may have been written fairly articulately, uses a whole host of anthropologetic terms and just generally sounds clever you assume it’s the absolute truth." has got me wondering why you said this. I also have to point out that "anthropologetic " is not a word and that it seems inappropriate to make up silly conjunctions when insulting the intelligence of someone whom you know nothing about.

[GodsChosenSoldier]

Then the debate is over if you will not read the actual information posted. You requested specific information and then when it is provided you refuse to address it. This is not a simple subject that can be settled with small posts and no scientific data.

You titled this thread ‘evolution: a debate’, I really cant see the point of simply copying and pasting huge lengthy scientific articles.  Now, im certainly not a scholar, and you cats are far from super scientists but I think I would have preferred if rather we posted concise points and backed them up with sources, instead of turning this into a competition of who can paste the best links from the world wide web.  Anyhow not going to complain, Im sure I can manage that.

Just want to point out that Im not here to ‘win’ the debate and show off or whatever.  Im just trying to get my point across.  Whether you openly (in this thread) accept any evidence I provide (or refute yours) and ‘back down’, or whether you dismiss it here (and claim victory) but think about it later, outside the confines of this thread, either way, I’m happy as ive achieved what I had initally set out to.

"The australopithecine skull is in fact so overwhelmingly simian as opposed to human (figure 5) that the contrary proposition could be equated to an assertion that black is white." – Solly Zuckerman, BEYOND THE IVORY TOWER, p.78 AND he concluded that Australopithecus was merely an ordinary species of monkey and very definitely did not walk upright.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Australopithecus

That should thoroghly undermine his argument.

To quote from the above wacki, I mean wiki -

The earliest evidence of fundamentally bipedal hominids can be observed at the site of Laetoli in Tanzania. These hominid footprints are remarkably similar to modern humans and have been positively dated as 3.7 million years old. Until recently, the footprints have generally been classified as Australopithicine because that had been the only form of pre-human known to have existed in that region at that time; however, some scholars have considered reassigning them to a yet unidentified very early species of the genus Homo.

There have been many findings demonstrating that Homo sapiens dates back even earlier than 800,000 years. One of them is a discovery by Louis Leakey in the early 1970s in Olduvai Gorge. Here, in the Bed II layer, Leakey discovered that Australopithecus, Homo habilis and Homo erectus species had co-existed at the same time. What is even more interesting was a structure Leakey found in the same layer (Bed II). Here, he found the remains of a stone hut. The unusual aspect of the event was that this construction, which is still used in some parts of Africa, could only have been built by Homo sapiens! So, according to Leakey's findings, Australopithecus, Homo habilis, Homo erectus and modern man must have co-existed approximately 1.7 million years ago.219 This discovery must surely invalidate the evolutionary theory that claims that modern man evolved from ape-like species such as Australopithecus.
Indeed, some other discoveries trace the origins of modern man back to 1.7 million years ago. One of these important finds is the footprints found in Laetoli, Tanzania, by Mary Leakey in 1977. These footprints were found in a layer that was calculated to be 3.6 million years old, and more importantly, they were no different from the footprints that a contemporary man would leave.
 
3.6-million-year-old human footprints in Laetoli, in Tanzania.


The footprints found by Mary Leakey were later examined by a number of famous paleoanthropologists, such as Donald Johanson and Tim White. The results were the same. White wrote:
Make no mistake about it,... They are like modern human footprints. If one were left in the sand of a California beach today, and a four-year old were asked what it was, he would instantly say that somebody had walked there. He wouldn't be able to tell it from a hundred other prints on the beach, nor would you.220
After examining the footprints, Louis Robbins from the University of North California made the following comments:
The arch is raised - the smaller individual had a higher arch than I do - and the big toe is large and aligned with the second toe … The toes grip the ground like human toes. You do not see this in other animal forms.221

Examinations of the morphological form of the footprints showed time and again that they had to be accepted as the prints of a human, and moreover, a modern human (Homo sapiens). Russell Tuttle, who also examined the footprints, wrote:
A small barefoot Homo sapiens could have made them... In all discernible morphological features, the feet of the individuals that made the trails are indistinguishable from those of modern humans.222
Impartial examinations of the footprints revealed their real owners. In reality, these footprints consisted of 20 fossilized footprints of a 10-year-old modern human and 27 footprints of an even younger one. They were certainly modern people like us.

This situation put the Laetoli footprints at the center of discussions for years. Evolutionary paleoanthropologists desperately tried to come up with an explanation, as it was hard for them to accept the fact that a modern man had been walking on the earth 3.6 million years ago. During the 1990s, the following "explanation" started to take shape: The evolutionists decided that these footprints must have been left by an Australopithecus, because according to their theory, it was impossible for a Homo species to have existed 3.6 years ago. However, Russell H. Tuttle wrote the following in an article in 1990:
In sum, the 3.5-million-year-old footprint traits at Laetoli site G resemble those of habitually unshod modern humans. None of their features suggest that the Laetoli hominids were less capable bipeds than we are. If the G footprints were not known to be so old, we would readily conclude that there had been made by a member of our genus, Homo... In any case, we should shelve the loose assumption that the Laetoli footprints were made by Lucy's kind, Australopithecus afarensis.223

To put it briefly, these footprints that were supposed to be 3.6 million years old could not have belonged to Australopithecus. The only reason why the footprints were thought to have been left by members of Australopithecus was the 3.6-million-year-old volcanic layer in which the footprints were found. The prints were ascribed to Australopithecus purely on the assumption that humans could not have lived so long ago.
These interpretations of the Laetoli footprints demonstrate one important fact. Evolutionists support their theory not based on scientific findings, but in spite of them. Here we have a theory that is blindly defended no matter what, with all new findings that cast the theory into doubt being either ignored or distorted to support the theory.
Briefly, the theory of evolution is not science, but a dogma kept alive despite science.

Although the intelligence of these early hominines was likely no more sophisticated than modern apes, the bipedal stature is the key evidence which distinguishes the group from previous primates who are quadrupeds.

The Bipedalism Problem
Apart from the fossil record that we have dealt with so far, unbridgeable anatomical gaps between men and apes also invalidate the fiction of human evolution. One of these has to do with the manner of walking.
Human beings walk upright on two feet. This is a very special form of locomotion not seen in any other mammalian species. Some other animals do have a limited ability to move when they stand on their two hind feet. Animals like bears and monkeys can move in this way only rarely, such as when they want to reach a source of food, and even then only for a short time. Normally, their skeletons lean forward and they walk on all fours.
Well, then, has bipedalism evolved from the quadrupedal gait of apes, as evolutionists claim?
 
The human skeleton is designed to walk upright. Ape skeletons, however, with their forward-leaning stance, short legs, and long arms, are suited to walking on four legs. It is not possible for there to be an "intermediate form" between them, because this would be extremely unproductive.


Of course not. Research has shown that the evolution of bipedalism never occurred, nor is it possible for it to have done so. First of all, bipedalism is not an evolutionary advantage. The way in which apes move is much easier, faster, and more efficient than man's bipedal stride. Man can neither move by jumping from tree to tree without descending to the ground, like a chimpanzee, nor run at a speed of 125 km per hour, like a cheetah. On the contrary, since man walks on two feet, he moves much more slowly on the ground. For the same reason, he is one of the most unprotected of all species in nature in terms of movement and defence. According to the logic of evolution, apes should not have evolved to adopt a bipedal stride; humans should instead have evolved to become quadrupedal.
 
Apes' hands and feet are curled in a manner suited to living in trees.
Another impasse of the evolutionary claim is that bipedalism does not serve the "gradual development" model of Darwinism. This model, which constitutes the basis of evolution, requires that there should be a "compound" stride between bipedalism and quadrupedalism. However, with the computerized research he conducted in 1996, Robin Crompton, senior lecturer in anatomy at Liverpool University, showed that such a "compound" stride was not possible. Crompton reached the following conclusion: A living being can either walk upright, or on all fours.224 A type of stride between the two is impossible because it would involve excessive energy consumption. This is why a half-bipedal being cannot exist.
The immense gap between man and ape is not limited solely to bipedalism. Many other issues still remain unexplained, such as brain capacity, the ability to talk, and so on. Elaine Morgan, an evolutionary paleoanthropologist, makes the following confession in relation to this matter:
Four of the most outstanding mysteries about humans are: 1) why do they walk on two legs? 2) why have they lost their fur? 3) why have they developed such large brains? 4) why did they learn to speak?
The orthodox answers to these questions are: 1) 'We do not yet know;' 2) 'We do not yet know;' 3) 'We do not yet know;' 4) 'We do not yet know.' The list of questions could be considerably lengthened without affecting the monotony of the answers.225

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Australopithecus
That should thoroghly undermine his argument.

Austrolopthecius
That Australopithecus cannot be counted an ancestor of man has recently been accepted by evolutionist sources. The famous French popular scientific magazine Science et Vie made the subject the cover of its May 1999 issue. Under the headline "Adieu Lucy"-Lucy being the most important fossil example of the species Australopithecus afarensis-the magazine reported that apes of the species Australopithecus would have to be removed from the human family tree. In this article, based on the discovery of another Australopithecus fossil known simply as St W573, the following sentences appear:
A new theory states that the genus Australopithecus is not the root of the human race… The results arrived at by the only woman authorized to examine St W573 are different from the normal theories regarding mankind's ancestors: this destroys the hominid family tree. Large primates, considered the ancestors of man, have been removed from the equation of this family tree… Australopithecus and Homo (human) species do not appear on the same branch. Man's direct ancestors are still waiting to be discovered.188

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hominidae

The great similarity between the skeletal and cranial structures of australopithecines and chimpanzees, and the refutation of the claim that these creatures walked upright, have caused great difficulty for evolutionary paleoanthropologists. The reason is that, according to the imaginary evolution scheme, Homo erectus comes after Australopithecus

New fossils of the same species unearthed in the late 1980s were to completely change this view. Some researchers, such as Bernard Wood and C. Loring Brace, who relied on those newly-found fossils, stated that Homo habilis (which means "skillful man," that is, man capable of using tools), should be classified as Australopithecus habilis, or "skillful southern ape," because Homo habilis had a lot of characteristics in common with the austalopithecine apes. It had long arms, short legs and an ape-like skeletal structure just like Australopithecus. Its fingers and toes were suitable for climbing. Their jaw was very similar to that of today's apes. Their 600 cc average cranial capacity is also an indication of the fact that they were apes. In short, Homo habilis, which was presented as a different species by some evolutionists, was in reality an ape species just like all the other australopithecines.
Research carried out in the years since Wood and Brace's work has demonstrated that Homo habilis was indeed no different from Australopithecus. The skull and skeletal fossil OH62 found by Tim White showed that this species had a small cranial capacity, as well as long arms and short legs, which enabled them to climb trees just like modern apes do.
The detailed analyses conducted by American anthropologist Holly Smith in 1994 indicated that Homo habilis was not Homo, in other words, human, at all, but rather unequivocally an ape. Speaking of the analyses she made on the teeth of Australopithecus, Homo habilis, Homo erectus and Homo neanderthalensis, Smith stated the following;
Restricting analysis of fossils to specimens satisfying these criteria, patterns of dental development of gracile australopithecines and Homo Habilis remain classified with African apes. Those of Homo erectus and Neanderthals are classified with humans.189
Within the same year, Fred Spoor, Bernard Wood and Frans Zonneveld, all specialists on anatomy, reached a similar conclusion through a totally different method. This method was based on the comparative analysis of the semicircular canals in the inner ear of humans and apes, which allow them to maintain their balance. Spoor, Wood and Zonneveld concluded that:
Among the fossil hominids the earliest species to demonstrate the modern human morphology is Homo erectus. In contrast, the semi-circular canal dimensions in crania from southern Africa attributed to Australopithecus and Paranthropus resemble those of the extant great apes.190
Spoor, Wood and Zonneveld also studied a Homo habilis specimen, namely Stw 53, and found out that "Stw 53 relied less on bipedal behavior than the australopithecines." This meant that the H. habilis specimen was even more ape-like than the Australopithecus species. Thus they concluded that "Stw 53 represents an unlikely intermediate between the morphologies seen in the australopithecines and H. erectus."191
This finding yielded two important results:
1. Fossils referred to as Homo habilis did not actually belong to the genus Homo, i.e., humans, but to that of Australopithecus, i.e., apes.
2. Both Homo habilis and Australopithecus were creatures that walked stooped forward-that is to say, they had the skeleton of an ape. They have no relation whatsoever to man.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homo_erectus

According to the fanciful scheme suggested by evolutionists, the internal evolution of the Homo genus is as follows: First Homo erectus , then so-called "archaic" Homo sapiens and Neanderthal man (Homo sapiens neanderthalensis), and finally, Cro-Magnon man (Homo sapiens sapiens). However all these classifications are really only variations and unique races in the human family. The difference between them is no greater than the difference between an Inuit and an African, or a pygmy and a European.

Let us first examine Homo erectus , which is referred to as the most primitive human species. As the name implies, Homo erectus means "man who walks upright." Evolutionists have had to separate these fossils from earlier ones by adding the qualification of "erectness," because all the available Homo erectus fossils are straight to an extent not observed in any of the australopithecines or so-called Homo Habilis specimens. There is no difference between the postcranial skeleton of modern man and that of Homo erectus .
The primary reason for evolutionists' defining Homo erectus as "primitive" is the cranial capacity of its skull (900-1,100 cc), which is smaller than the average modern man, and its thick eyebrow projections. However, there are many people living today in the world who have the same cranial capacity as Homo erectus (pygmies, for instance) and other races have protruding eyebrows (Native Australians, for instance). It is a commonly agreed-upon fact that differences in cranial capacity do not necessarily denote differences in intelligence or abilities. Intelligence depends on the internal organization of the brain, rather than on its volume.197
The fossils that have made Homo erectus known to the entire world are those of Peking man and Java man in Asia. However, in time it was realized that these two fossils are not reliable. Peking man consists of some elements made of plaster whose originals have been lost, and Java man is composed of a skull fragment plus a pelvic bone that was found yards away from it with no indication that these belonged to the same creature. This is why the Homo erectus fossils found in Africa have gained such increasing importance. (It should also be noted that some of the fossils said to be Homo erectus were included under a second species named Homo ergaster by some evolutionists. There is disagreement among the experts on this issue. We will treat all these fossils under the classification of Homo erectus .)
The most famous of the Homo erectus specimens found in Africa is the fossil of "Narikotome Homo erectus ," or the "Turkana Boy," which was found near Lake Turkana in Kenya. It is confirmed that the fossil was that of a 12-year-old boy, who would have been 1.83 meters tall in adolescence. The upright skeletal structure of the fossil is no different from that of modern man. The American paleoanthropologist Alan Walker said that he doubted that "the average pathologist could tell the difference between the fossil skeleton and that of a modern human." Concerning the skull, Walker wrote that he laughed when he saw it because "it looked so much like a Neanderthal."198 As we will see in the next chapter, Neanderthals are a modern human race. Therefore, Homo erectus is also a modern human race.

Even the evolutionist Richard Leakey states that the differences between Homo erectus and modern man are no more than racial variance:
One would also see differences: in the shape of the skull, in the degree of protrusion of the face, the robustness of the brows and so on. These differences are probably no more pronounced than we see today between the separate geographical races of modern humans. Such biological variation arises when populations are geographically separated from each other for significant lengths of time.199
The conclusion reached by the scientists defending the abovementioned thesis can be summarized as "Homo erectus is not a different species from Homo sapiens , but rather a race within Homo sapiens ." On the other hand, there is a huge gap between Homo erectus , a human race, and the apes that preceded Homo erectus in the "human evolution" scenario (Australopithecus , Homo Habilis , and Homo rudolfensis ). This means that the first men appeared in the fossil record suddenly and without any prior evolutionary history.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neanderthal

Neanderthals (Homo neanderthalensis ) were human beings who suddenly appeared 100,000 years ago in Europe, and who disappeared, or were assimilated by mixing with other races, quietly but quickly 35,000 years ago. Their only difference from modern man is that their skeletons are more robust and their cranial capacity slightly bigger.
Neanderthals were a human race, a fact which is admitted by almost everybody today. Evolutionists have tried very hard to present them as a "primitive species," yet all the findings indicate that they were no different from a "robust" man walking on the street today. A prominent authority on the subject, Erik Trinkaus, a paleoanthropologist from New Mexico University, writes:
Detailed comparisons of Neanderthal skeletal remains with those of modern humans have shown that there is nothing in Neanderthal anatomy that conclusively indicates locomotor, manipulative, intellectual, or linguistic abilities inferior to those of modern humans.202
Many contemporary researchers define Neanderthal man as a subspecies of modern man, and call him Homo sapiens neanderthalensis.
On the other hand, the fossil record shows that Neanderthals possessed an advanced culture. One of the most interesting examples of this is a fossilized flute made by Neanderthal people. This flute, made from the thighbone of a bear, was found by the archaeologist Ivan Turk in a cave in northern Yugoslavia in July 1995. Musicologist Bob Fink then analyzed it. Fink proved that this flute, thought by radio-carbon testing to be between 43,000 and 67,000 years old, produced four notes, and that it had half and full tones. This discovery shows that Neanderthals used the seven-note scale, the basic formula of western music. Fink, who examined the flute, states that "the distance between the second and third holes on the old flute is double that between the third and fourth." This means that the first distance represents a full note, and the distance next to it a half note. Fink says, "These three notes … are inescapably diatonic and will sound like a near-perfect fit within any kind of standard diatonic scale, modern or antique," thus revealing that Neanderthals were people with an ear for and knowledge of music.203
Some other fossil discoveries show that Neanderthals buried their dead, looked after their sick, and used necklaces and similar adornments.204
 
NEANDERTHAL SEWING NEEDLE
26,000-year-old needle: This interesting find shows that Neanderthals had the knowledge to make clothing tens of thousands of years ago
(D. Johanson, B. Edgar, From Lucy to Language, page 99).



NEANDERTHAL FLUTE
A Neanderthal flute made from bone. Calculations made from this artifact have shown that the holes were made to produce correct notes, in other words that this was an expertly designed instrument.Above can be seen researcher Bob Fink's calculations regarding the flute.Contrary to evolutionist propaganda, discoveries such as this show that Neanderthal people were civilized, not primitive cavemen
(The AAAS Science News Service, "Neanderthals Lived Harmoniously," April 3, 1997).


A 26,000-year-old sewing needle, proved to have been used by Neanderthal people, was also found during fossil excavations. This needle, which is made of bone, is exceedingly straight and has a hole for the thread to be passed through.205 People who wear clothing and feel the need for a sewing needle cannot be considered "primitive."
The best research into the Neanderthals' tool-making abilities is that of Steven L. Kuhn and Mary C. Stiner, professors of anthropology and archaeology, respectively, at the University of New Mexico. Although these two scientists are proponents of the theory of evolution, the results of their archaeological research and analyses show that the Neanderthals who lived in caves on the coast of southwest Italy for thousands of years carried out activities that required as complex a capacity for thought as modern-day human beings.206
Kuhn and Stiner found a number of tools in these caves. The discoveries were of sharp, pointed cutting implements, including spearheads, made by carefully chipping away layers at the edges of the flint. Making sharp edges of this kind by chipping away layers is without a doubt a process calling for intelligence and skill. Research has shown that one of the most important problems encountered in that process is breakages that occur as a result of pressure at the edge of the stones. For this reason, the individual carrying out the process has to make fine judgments of the amount of force to use in order to keep the edges straight, and of the precise angle to strike at, if he is making an angled tool.
Margaret Conkey from the University of California explains that tools made in periods before the Neanderthals were also made by communities of intelligent people who were fully aware of what they were doing:
COUNTERFACTUAL PROPAGANDA
Although fossil discoveries show that Neanderthals had no "primitive" features as compared to us and were a human race, the evolutionist prejudices regarding them continue unabated. Neanderthal man is still sometimes described as an "ape man" in some evolutionist museums, as shown in the picture to the side. This is an indication how Darwinism rests on prejudice and propaganda, not on scientific discoveries.    

If you look at the things archaic humans made with their hands, Levallois cores and so on, that's not a bumbling king of thing. They had an appreciation of the material they were working with, an understanding of their world.207
In short, scientific discoveries show that Neanderthals were a human race no different from us on the levels of intelligence and dexterity. This race either disappeared from history by assimilating and mixing with other races, or became extinct in some unknown manner. But they were definitely not "primitive" or "half-ape."

Recent Evidence
Latest Evidence: Sahelanthropus tchadensis and The Missing Link That Never Was
The latest evidence to shatter the evolutionary theory's claim about the origin of man is the new fossil Sahelanthropus tchadensis unearthed in the Central African country of Chad in the summer of 2002.
The fossil has set the cat among the pigeons in the world of Darwinism. In its article giving news of the discovery, the world-renowned journal Nature admitted that "New-found skull could sink our current ideas about human evolution."213
Daniel Lieberman of Harvard University said that "This [discovery] will have the impact of a small nuclear bomb."214
The reason for this is that although the fossil in question is 7 million years old, it has a more "human-like" structure (according to the criteria evolutionists have hitherto used) than the 5 million-year-old Australopithecus ape species that is alleged to be "mankind's oldest ancestor." This shows that the evolutionary links established between extinct ape species based on the highly subjective and prejudiced criterion of "human similarity" are totally imaginary.
John Whitfield, in his article "Oldest Member of Human Family Found" published in Nature on July, 11, 2002, confirms this view quoting from Bernard Wood, an evolutionist anthropologist from George Washington University in Washington:
"When I went to medical school in 1963, human evolution looked like a ladder." he [Bernard Wood] says. The ladder stepped from monkey to man through a progression of intermediates, each slightly less ape-like than the last. Now human evolution looks like a bush. We have a menagerie of fossil hominids... How they are related to each other and which, if any of them, are human forebears is still debated.215
The comments of Henry Gee, the senior editor of Nature and a leading paleoanthropologist, about the newly discovered ape fossil are very noteworthy. In his article published in The Guardian, Gee refers to the debate about the fossil and writes:
Whatever the outcome, the skull shows, once and for all, that the old idea of a 'missing link' is bunk... It should now be quite plain that the very idea of the missing link, always shaky, is now completely untenable.216

[GodsChosenSoldier]

Example 3: human-apes

One of the most celebrated examples of transitional fossils is our collection of fossil hominids (see Figure 1.4.4 below). Based upon the consensus of numerous phylogenetic analyses, Pan troglodytes (the chimpanzee) is the closest living relative of humans. Thus, we expect that organisms lived in the past which were intermediate in morphology between humans and chimpanzees. Over the past century, many spectacular paleontological finds have identified such transitional hominid fossils.





 * (A) Pan troglodytes, chimpanzee, modern
 * (B) Australopithecus africanus, STS 5, 2.6 My
 * (C) Australopithecus africanus, STS 71, 2.5 My
 * (D) Homo habilis, KNM-ER 1813, 1.9 My
 * (E) Homo habilis, OH24, 1.8 My
 * (F) Homo rudolfensis, KNM-ER 1470, 1.8 My
 * (G) Homo erectus, Dmanisi cranium D2700, 1.75 My
 * (H) Homo ergaster (early H. erectus), KNM-ER 3733, 1.75 My
 * (I) Homo heidelbergensis, "Rhodesia man," 300,000 - 125,000 y
 * (J) Homo sapiens neanderthalensis, La Ferrassie 1, 70,000 y
 * (K) Homo sapiens neanderthalensis, La Chappelle-aux-Saints, 60,000 y
 * (L) Homo sapiens neanderthalensis, Le Moustier, 45,000 y
 * (M) Homo sapiens sapiens, Cro-Magnon I, 30,000 y
 * (N) Homo sapiens sapiens, modern

SKELETAL VARIATION AMONG MODERN HUMAN RACES
Evolutionary paleontologists portray different Homo erectus, Homo sapiens neanderthalensis, and archaic Homo sapiens human fossils as indicating different species or subspecies on the evolutionary path. They base this on the differences between these fossil skulls. However, these differences actually consist of variations among different human races that have existed, some of which have become extinct or have been assimilated. These differences have grown less pronounced as human races have intermixed over time.
Despite this, quite striking differences can still be observed between human races living today. The skulls in these pages, all belonging to modern human beings (Homo sapiens sapiens), are all examples of these differences. To show similar structural differences between races that lived in the past as evidence for evolution is quite simply bias. 


Native Peruvian from the fifteenth century.


Middle-aged Bengali.
 

Male from the Solomon Islands (Melanesia) who died in 1893.


German male aged 25-30.


Male Congolese aged 35-40.


Male Inuit aged 35-40.


BLATANT LIES

The Piltdown Man Scandal
In 1912, a well-known doctor and amateur paleoanthropologist named Charles Dawson came out with the assertion that he had found a jawbone and a cranial fragment in a pit in Piltdown, England. Even though the jawbone was more ape-like, the teeth and the skull were like a man's. These specimens were labelled the "Piltdown man." Alleged to be 500,000 years old, they were displayed as an absolute proof of human evolution in several museums. For more than 40 years, many scientific articles were written on "Piltdown man," many interpretations and drawings were made, and the fossil was presented as important evidence for human evolution. No fewer than 500 doctoral theses were written on the subject.232 While visiting the British Museum in 1921, leading American paleontologist Henry Fairfield Osborn said "We have to be reminded over and over again that Nature is full of paradoxes" and proclaimed Piltdown "a discovery of transcendant importance to the prehistory of man."233
In 1949, Kenneth Oakley, from the British Museum's Paleontology Department, attempted to use "fluorine testing," a new test used for determining the date of fossils. A trial was made on the fossil of Piltdown man. The result was astonishing. During the test, it was realized that the jawbone of Piltdown man did not contain any fluorine. This indicated that it had remained buried no more than a few years. The skull, which contained only a small amount of fluorine, showed that it was only a few thousand years old.
It was determined that the teeth in the jawbone, belonging to an orangutan, had been worn down artificially and that the "primitive" tools discovered with the fossils were simple imitations that had been sharpened with steel implements. In the detailed analysis completed by Joseph Weiner, this forgery was revealed to the public in 1953. The skull belonged to a 500-year-old man, and the jaw bone belonged to a recently deceased ape! The teeth had been specially arranged in a particular way and added to the jaw, and the molar surfaces were filed in order to resemble those of a man. Then all these pieces were stained with potassium dichromate to give them an old appearance. These stains began to disappear when dipped in acid. Sir Wilfred Le Gros Clark, who was in the team that uncovered the forgery, could not hide his astonishment at this situation, and said: "The evidences of artificial abrasion immediately sprang to the eye. Indeed so obvious did they seem it may well be asked-how was it that they had escaped notice before?"234 In the wake of all this, "Piltdown man" was hurriedly removed from the British Museum where it had been displayed for more than 40 years.
 
For 40 years, Piltdown man was accepted as the greatest evidence for human evolution. Evolutionist fossil experts claimed to have found a lot of transitional features in the skull. It only emerged later that the fossil was a fake.


Alternative link http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/3264025.stm

The Nebraska Man Scandal
In 1922, Henry Fairfield Osborn, the director of the American Museum of Natural History, declared that he had found a fossil molar tooth belonging to the Pliocene period in western Nebraska near Snake Brook. This tooth allegedly bore common characteristics of both man and ape. An extensive scientific debate began surrounding this fossil, which came to be called "Nebraska man," in which some interpreted this tooth as belonging to Pithecanthropus erectus, while others claimed it was closer to human beings. Nebraska man was also immediately given a "scientific name," Hesperopithecus haroldcooki.
Many authorities gave Osborn their support. Based on this single tooth, reconstructions of Nebraska man's head and body were drawn. Moreover, Nebraska man was even pictured along with his wife and children, as a whole family in a natural setting.
All of these scenarios were developed from just one tooth. Evolutionist circles placed such faith in this "ghost man" that when a researcher named William Bryan opposed these biased conclusions relying on a single tooth, he was harshly criticized.
In 1927, other parts of the skeleton were also found. According to these newly discovered pieces, the tooth belonged neither to a man nor to an ape. It was realized that it belonged to an extinct species of wild American pig called Prosthennops. William Gregory entitled the article published in Science in which he announced the truth, "Hesperopithecus Apparently Not an Ape Nor a Man."235 Then all the drawings of Hesperopithecus haroldcooki and his "family" were hurriedly removed from evolutionary literature.
 
Nebraska man, and Henry Fairfield Osborn, who named it.


Conclusion
All the scientific deceptions and prejudiced evaluations made to support the theory of evolution show that the theory is a kind of ideology, and not at all a scientific account. Like all ideologies, this one too has its fanatical supporters, who are desperate to prove evolution, at no matter what cost. Or else they are so dogmatically bound to the theory that every new discovery is perceived as a great proof of the theory, even if it has nothing to do with evolution. This is really a very distressing picture for science, because it shows that science is being misdirected in the name of a dogma.
In his book Darwinism: The Refutation of a Myth, the Swedish scientist Soren Lovtrup has this to say on the subject:
I suppose that nobody will deny that it is a great misfortune if an entire branch of science becomes addicted to a false theory. But this is what has happened in biology: for a long time now people discuss evolutionary problems in a peculiar "Darwinian" vocabulary-"adaptation," "selection pressure," "natural selection," etc.-thereby believing that they contribute to the explanation of natural events. They do not... I believe that one day the Darwinian myth will be ranked the greatest deceit in the history of science.236
Further proof that Darwinism is the greatest deception in the history of science is provided by molecular biology.

Source
The source for the above information was http://www.harunyahya.com/refuted8.php .  As you would have just read (I hope), the above information was provided in simple English laymen terms as opposed to the majority of the information you presented which is in somewhat 'scientific speak' intended to baffle the ordinary reader into some sort of submission due to being unable to actually make sense of all of the information.  Just another trick employed by the evolutionists.

[GodsChosenSoldier]

You have assumed that evolution is not real because you "don't have time" to read the material, and because your dogma probably doesn't permit it.

No, I assumed its not real because there's no irrefutable evidence of intermediary creatures/fossils, something that you are struggling to provide.

GCS,
I usually do not reply to petty insults when debating or conversing but seeing your post where you say "Or do you mean that you don’t really understand it,COMMA GOES HERE? but because it may have been written fairly articulately, uses a whole host of anthropologetic terms and just generally sounds clever you assume it’s the absolute truth." has got me wondering why you said this.

You have completely misunderstood me there.  I simply asked whether one of the reasons why you had to resort to cut and paste was possibly the fact that you dont really understand the information yourself, - and that because the information may have 'sounded good' you felt it was convincing.  If you look at the quote above, I have modified it where perhaps I should have added a comma.  Forgive me, I've only really started to write recently, following my conversion from gangsta rap to the truth.   

I also have to point out that "anthropologetic " is not a word and that it seems inappropriate to make up silly conjunctions when insulting the intelligence of someone whom you know nothing about.

Again, that was on purpose, I simply missed the speech marks.  I enjoy making up words, it seems like everyone else is so what the heck. 

And I definetly was not insulting your intelligence.  Infact thats one of the reasons why I wanted to start this dialogue.  I expect it of  'blind' sheeple to believe anything they see on tv for the truth but there's a fair few intelligent cats on here so I wanted to see what their reasons were for pushing this widespread yet poorly verified doctrine.

[KillJoy]

I don't see why the "theory" of evolution is wholeheartedly opposed by so many people.  Is it because your so attached to the conception that God created humans as infinitely more special then any other life form.

Personally, anything that falls in the realm of religion, and creationism, are much less based on any evidence whatsoever then anything in the evolution realm.

Most religious knowledge isn't continously trying to prove itself wrong, and constantly pushing for new answers like science does.  But even the Pope John Paul 2 eventually conceded that the evolution of the body was a real fact, cept they still think the mind was bestowed upon us by God.  It makes sense they wouldn't agree to that, since it would discredit the concept of a soul.

So whats the benefit as not viewing ourselves as interrelated to all the other living species on earth, does it give us more of a right to have complete dominion over all other "inferior" life forms?

[Godfather of Soul]

You titled this thread ‘evolution: a debate’, I really cant see the point of simply copying and pasting huge lengthy scientific articles.  Now, im certainly not a scholar, and you cats are far from super scientists but I think I would have preferred if rather we posted concise points and backed them up with sources, instead of turning this into a competition of who can paste the best links from the world wide web. Anyhow not going to complain, Im sure I can manage that.

Just want to point out that Im not here to ‘win’ the debate and show off or whatever.  Im just trying to get my point across.  Whether you openly (in this thread) accept any evidence I provide (or refute yours) and ‘back down’, or whether you dismiss it here (and claim victory) but think about it later, outside the confines of this thread, either way, I’m happy as ive achieved what I had initally set out to.

---Edit---First, can you post a link to the book you are getting all of this from?  It's clear that you are only using one source...we are using many.  It would be nice to read it, since that is all you are doing: posting IT and not a variety of sources.

It's called posting evidence.  It's what you do in court...which is a debate.  As for being a scientist, that has no bearing on whether or not I understand the readings that I posted.  I may have a background in evolutionary biology, but you assume that I do not.  That is the problem with debating people like you; you assume too much about those you debate with.  You actually know nothing about me, my academic training, nor my familiarity with the subject matter.  But you cannot help but engage in subtle ad hominem attacks on those you disagree with. 

As for the concise points.  You made a precise request, and I gave you ample information.  You seem to not even know what you want in this debate.  All you needed do was ask for ONE piece of evidence.  But let me quote you:

Here on this thread, GOS and his cronies will provide substantial unambiguous and concrete evidence of intermediate species/creatures that must have existed for the Theory of evolution to have any sort of basis or credibility.

So when we put a relatively small amount of information about the topic at hand in this thread, you complain.  Make up your mind.

How did you achieve anything?  You have not shown anything that was not established.  No one has claimed that evolution is a complete theory.  Just as no one has proven that gravity is absolute.  If you disagree with me, may I recommend these books to you:

http://www.amazon.com/Elegant-Universe-Superstrings-Dimensions-Ultimate/dp/0375708111/sr=8-2/qid=1163920377/ref=pd_bbs_2/104-9488709-7614337?ie=UTF8&s=books



http://www.amazon.com/Fabric-Cosmos-Space-Texture-Reality/dp/0375727205/sr=8-1/qid=1163920377/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1/104-9488709-7614337?ie=UTF8&s=books



In them, Mr. Greene does a very detailed and precise analysis of HOW gravity does not work beyond the Planck Length 1.6 × 10-35 metres.   Yet we see evidence of gravity every day.  There is a gap between general relativity and quantum mechanics because gravity seems to work on the macro scale, and not the mintue scales of quanta.  Yet you take gravity for granted even though it is an incomplete THEORY.  You do not know that everything you throw up will come down.  Just because evolution is an incomplete theory does not mean that it isn't incredibly strong...stronger than ANY OTHER theory about the origins of biodiversity on planet earth.  I cannot wait for you to post evidence that something other than evolution and natural selection are taking place and the mechanisms of that/those things.

There have been many findings demonstrating that Homo sapiens dates back even earlier than 800,000 years. One of them is a discovery by Louis Leakey in the early 1970s in Olduvai Gorge. Here, in the Bed II layer, Leakey discovered that Australopithecus, Homo habilis and Homo erectus species had co-existed at the same time. What is even more interesting was a structure Leakey found in the same layer (Bed II). Here, he found the remains of a stone hut. The unusual aspect of the event was that this construction, which is still used in some parts of Africa, could only have been built by Homo sapiens! So, according to Leakey's findings, Australopithecus, Homo habilis, Homo erectus and modern man must have co-existed approximately 1.7 million years ago.219 This discovery must surely invalidate the evolutionary theory that claims that modern man evolved from ape-like species such as Australopithecus.
Indeed, some other discoveries trace the origins of modern man back to 1.7 million years ago. One of these important finds is the footprints found in Laetoli, Tanzania, by Mary Leakey in 1977. These footprints were found in a layer that was calculated to be 3.6 million years old, and more importantly, they were no different from the footprints that a contemporary man would leave.
 
3.6-million-year-old human footprints in Laetoli, in Tanzania.

-The footprints do not mean that modern mand DID leave them...only that they are extremely similar to the footprints of modern man.  That doesn't disprove anything.

 Here is some stuff I found on Mary Leakey:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laetoli

The footprints

A line of hominid fossil footprints, discovered in 1978 by Mary Leakey, Richard Hay Tim White and their team, is preserved in powdery volcanic ash from an eruption of the 20 km distant Sadiman Volcano. Soft rain cemented the ash-layer (15 cm thick) to tuff without destroying the prints. In time, they were covered by other ash deposits. The hominid prints were produced by three individuals, one walking in the footprints of the other, making the original tracks difficult to discover. As the tracks lead in the same direction, they might have been produced by a group -- but there is nothing else to support the common reconstruction of a nuclear family visiting the waterhole together.

Human remains

The remains of 13 hominids have been found, mainly mandibles and teeth. They show affinities to the female skeleton Lucy from Hadar, Ethiopia. Most scholars classify them as Australopithecus afarensis, but some stress the greater similarity to Homo and prefer to speak of Homo sp. indet.

A rather complete skull found at Ngaloba in 1976 has been dated to ca. 120 000 to 100 000 years ago. It is very modern anatomically, with a cranial capacity of ca. 1200 cm³, but the forehead is still very low.

-hominids do not mean modern man.

And this here, actually supports the general premise of evolution or close relations to man:

The footprints found by Mary Leakey were later examined by a number of famous paleoanthropologists, such as Donald Johanson and Tim White. The results were the same. White wrote:
Make no mistake about it,... They are like modern human footprints. If one were left in the sand of a California beach today, and a four-year old were asked what it was, he would instantly say that somebody had walked there. He wouldn't be able to tell it from a hundred other prints on the beach, nor would you.220
After examining the footprints, Louis Robbins from the University of North California made the following comments:
The arch is raised - the smaller individual had a higher arch than I do - and the big toe is large and aligned with the second toe … The toes grip the ground like human toes. You do not see this in other animal forms.

So, I don't see how this helps your argument. They are RELATED to humans, as they are bi-pedal! 


http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/evolution/library/07/1/l_071_03.html

The prints, say experts on hominid body structure, are strikingly different from those of a chimpanzee, and in fact are hardly distinguishable from those of modern humans. The only known hominid fossils of that age in that location are those of Lucy and her kind, the small-brained but upright-walking hominids classified as Australopithecus afarensis. Some analysts have noted that the smaller of the two clearest trails bears telltale signs that suggest whoever left the prints was burdened on one side -- perhaps a female carrying an infant on her hip. While the detailed interpretation of the prints remains a matter of debate, they remain an extraordinary and fascinating fossil find, preserving a moment in prehistoric time.

Laetoli is debateable, but does not prove that early hominids were not there or that they did not have very similar features to modern man...which would make sense if they were upright walking apes (LIKE US)

This situation put the Laetoli footprints at the center of discussions for years. Evolutionary paleoanthropologists desperately tried to come up with an explanation, as it was hard for them to accept the fact that a modern man had been walking on the earth 3.6 million years ago. During the 1990s, the following "explanation" started to take shape: The evolutionists decided that these footprints must have been left by an Australopithecus, because according to their theory, it was impossible for a Homo species to have existed 3.6 years ago. However, Russell H. Tuttle wrote the following in an article in 1990:
In sum, the 3.5-million-year-old footprint traits at Laetoli site G resemble those of habitually unshod modern humans. None of their features suggest that the Laetoli hominids were less capable bipeds than we are. If the G footprints were not known to be so old, we would readily conclude that there had been made by a member of our genus, Homo... In any case, we should shelve the loose assumption that the Laetoli footprints were made by Lucy's kind, Australopithecus afarensis.

No we shouldn't, because many scientists still believe that they are A.A. footprints.  Just because the author of this particular uncited article says it should be discounted, and they quote one scientist, does not mean that they are not AA footprints.

None of their features suggest that the Laetoli hominids were less capable bipeds than we are.

This statement doesn't prove that modern man MADE THEM! 

These interpretations of the Laetoli footprints demonstrate one important fact. Evolutionists support their theory not based on scientific findings, but in spite of them. Here we have a theory that is blindly defended no matter what, with all new findings that cast the theory into doubt being either ignored or distorted to support the theory.
Briefly, the theory of evolution is not science, but a dogma kept alive despite science.

Key word: interpretations.  So other scientists can and do interpret them in different ways.  That is the nature of scientific debate.   Even theories like gravity are constantly challenged and debated.  There are NO absolutes in science...which is hilairous because GCS makes it seem that science is dogmatic.  Well, if you show enough evidence to counter the millions of pieces of fossil evidence that support evolution, then they will accept it.  So far, creationists, like GCS cannot disprove the fossil record, only show that there are gaps in it, and in evolutionary theory.  Creationsists cannot prove that something created anything because they have ZERO evidence for it.  The theory of evolution is very much science.  It is based on over 150 years of careful observation by tens of thousands of individuals, the vast majority of whom find support for evolution.

http://www.religioustolerance.org/ev_publi.htm#earth

That would make the support for creation science among those branches of science who deal with the earth and its life forms at about 0.14%

Is that because they are all brainwashed?  Hardly:

http://www.religioustolerance.org/ev_proof.htm

Why almost all scientists believe in evolution:

It is impossible to prove that the theory of evolution is absolutely true. The theory maintains that plant evolution, animal evolution and the major geological changes to the earth unfolded over billions of years. Thus, the full theory cannot be demonstrated in the laboratory. Processes like the rise of mountains and erosion are simply too slow to be observed during one person's lifetime. Elements of the theory (e.g. species evolution of fruit flies in the laboratory and of Tilapia fish in East African lakes) have been observed. But nobody was on hand to observe what the world and its life forms looked like hundreds of millions of years ago.

However, sufficient evidence exists in support of evolution to convince 99.85% of America's earth and life scientists that the theory is valid. Evolution is the key unifying theory that unifies many different branches of science, from cosmology to biology.

Some questions for you, GCS:

1.  How old is the earth?
2.  Is the earth static?  Do you disagree with plate tectonics?
3.  Do you deny the big bang?
4.  Do you deny that there have been hundreds of millions of species of plants and animals that do not exist right now?
5.  Why do they not exist, and why do we, and who/what is responsible for their destruction/creation and what evidence do you have of it?

The Bipedalism Problem
Apart from the fossil record that we have dealt with so far, unbridgeable anatomical gaps between men and apes also invalidate the fiction of human evolution. One of these has to do with the manner of walking.
Human beings walk upright on two feet. This is a very special form of locomotion not seen in any other mammalian species. Some other animals do have a limited ability to move when they stand on their two hind feet. Animals like bears and monkeys can move in this way only rarely, such as when they want to reach a source of food, and even then only for a short time. Normally, their skeletons lean forward and they walk on all fours.
Well, then, has bipedalism evolved from the quadrupedal gait of apes, as evolutionists claim?
 
The human skeleton is designed to walk upright. Ape skeletons, however, with their forward-leaning stance, short legs, and long arms, are suited to walking on four legs. It is not possible for there to be an "intermediate form" between them, because this would be extremely unproductive.

That is proof of nothing!  That is an extremely weak argument.  What evidence is there that bipedalism did not arise spontaneously?  Why does there have to be something that is somewhere in-between bi-pedalism and quadrapedalism?  It can be either or.  But let us examine the question from a perspective of natural selection.  Let us say that there were transitional entities that were neither quadra-pedal or bi-pedal.  Certainly they wouldn't have the ability to compete with either and natural selection would force them in one or the other direction: those that could walk upright would survive and those that could not would die.  That's how natural selection works.  And just becaue there is no fossil evidence does not mean that there weren't intermediate entities.  The fossil record does not have every animal that ever lived.  There are things that existed that man will never know about.  However, that does not disprove bi-pedal evolution. 

First of all, bipedalism is not an evolutionary advantage. The way in which apes move is much easier, faster, and more efficient than man's bipedal stride. Man can neither move by jumping from tree to tree without descending to the ground, like a chimpanzee, nor run at a speed of 125 km per hour, like a cheetah. On the contrary, since man walks on two feet, he moves much more slowly on the ground. For the same reason, he is one of the most unprotected of all species in nature in terms of movement and defence. According to the logic of evolution, apes should not have evolved to adopt a bipedal stride; humans should instead have evolved to become quadrupedal.

http://www.jqjacobs.net/anthro/paleo/bipedalism.html

Those are some competing THEORIES about how bipedalism may have evolved.  They are supported with actual empirical data.

Here are some that apply directly to the quote above:

Hunt's postural feeding hypothesis asserts that the arboreal food gathering postures of arm-hanging and vertical climbing, a shared adaptation and postural specialization of apes, are sufficiently common to influence anatomy. Both chimpanzee behavior and australopithecine anatomy inform the model. Eighty percent of chimpanzee bipedalism is during feeding with arm-hanging stabilizing the posture 93% of the time in terminal branches and 52% in the central parts of trees. Torso form in australopithecines features adaptations to arm-hanging, inferring australopithecine adaptation to arboreal bipedal fruit gathering. According to Hunt, this early and specialized origin of bipedalism only later evolved into habitual bipedal locomotion.

So it is advantageous to be bi-pedal when feeding.  Chimps (our closest living genetic relatives behind bonobos) feed standing up 80% of the time.  To make a statement like:

According to the logic of evolution, apes should not have evolved to adopt a bipedal stride; humans should instead have evolved to become quadrupedal.

Is absurd because it assumes that there are NO advantages to being bipedal and there are.  It is easier to feed if you stand up, as evidenced by ape behavior.  HUMANS ARE APES!

Robin Crompton, senior lecturer in anatomy at Liverpool University, showed that such a "compound" stride was not possible. Crompton reached the following conclusion: A living being can either walk upright, or on all fours.224 A type of stride between the two is impossible because it would involve excessive energy consumption. This is why a half-bipedal being cannot exist.

Duh...those that were neither did not survive.  This is evidence of natural selection.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/5479501

A monkey that started walking upright after a near-death experience...which would show that some apes can be FORCED by their environments to walk upright if the environmental pressure is sufficient!

Many other issues still remain unexplained, such as brain capacity, the ability to talk, and so on. Elaine Morgan, an evolutionary paleoanthropologist, makes the following confession in relation to this matter:
Four of the most outstanding mysteries about humans are: 1) why do they walk on two legs? 2) why have they lost their fur? 3) why have they developed such large brains? 4) why did they learn to speak?

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/3076710/
Some possible explanations as to why man walks upright.

http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?sec=health&res=9C03E0DE1030F93AA2575BC0A9659C8B63
Some possible explanations as to why we lost our fur.

http://www.sciam.com/askexpert_question.cfm?articleID=0001E851-65EB-1C72-9EB7809EC588F2D7&catID=3
In regards to why we evolved larger brains.

A new theory states that the genus Australopithecus is not the root of the human race… The results arrived at by the only woman authorized to examine St W573 are different from the normal theories regarding mankind's ancestors: this destroys the hominid family tree. Large primates, considered the ancestors of man, have been removed from the equation of this family tree… Australopithecus and Homo (human) species do not appear on the same branch. Man's direct ancestors are still waiting to be discovered.

Ok?  So she has one theory.  As for Australopithecus being the "root" of the human race, I don't see too many people saying that.  I see a great number of people saying that we are closely related.  There is no direct link from us to them because we appeared millions of years AFTER they had disappeared.

http://www.mnh.si.edu/anthro/humanorigins/ha/primate.html

http://www.mnh.si.edu/anthro/humanorigins/ha/a_tree.html

That is from the smithsonian.  They, and the thousands of scientists who contribute material to that museum (the most comprehensive in the world) do not agree with her theory because there is sufficient evidence in the OTHER direction.

I will finish the rest when I have time...

[GodsChosenSoldier]

You titled this thread ‘evolution: a debate’, I really cant see the point of simply copying and pasting huge lengthy scientific articles. Now, im certainly not a scholar, and you cats are far from super scientists but I think I would have preferred if rather we posted concise points and backed them up with sources, instead of turning this into a competition of who can paste the best links from the world wide web. Anyhow not going to complain, Im sure I can manage that.

---Edit---First, can you post a link to the book you are getting all of this from? It's clear that you are only using one source...we are using many. It would be nice to read it, since that is all you are doing: posting IT and not a variety of sources.

Again, your not reading my posts are you? If you read the last paragraph of my last post you will see that I posted my source.  And I have used more than one source, if you read my post in its entirety then you will see that is the case.  However, why should I have to resort to multiple sources if the source I use is fully cited and uses a whole host of references. 

It's called posting evidence. It's what you do in court...which is a debate. As for being a scientist, that has no bearing on whether or not I understand the readings that I posted. I may have a background in evolutionary biology, but you assume that I do not. That is the problem with debating people like you; you assume too much about those you debate with. You actually know nothing about me, my academic training, nor my familiarity with the subject matter. But you cannot help but engage in subtle ad hominem attacks on those you disagree with.

First off, let me tell you, that was not an attack. But yeah ok, your a scientist, but your certainly not doing a very good job of it so far.

How did you achieve anything? You have not shown anything that was not established. No one has claimed that evolution is a complete theory.

Ok so you finally admit it then.  You are not able to provide the evidence requested, so you now  claim that evolution is not a complete theory, nor is anything.  This then somehow justifies the missing fossils/  Im sorry I simply dont buy that bullshit. You know and everybody else knows that there are millions of fossils out there which show species suddenly appear, fully developed and yet somehow these intermediate species are not applicable as the theory is not a complete one?

Just as no one has proven that gravity is absolute. If you disagree with me, may I recommend these books to you:  In them, Mr. Greene does a very detailed and precise analysis of HOW gravity does not work beyond the Planck Length 1.6 × 10-35 metres. Yet we see evidence of gravity every day. There is a gap between general relativity and quantum mechanics because gravity seems to work on the macro scale, and not the mintue scales of quanta. Yet you take gravity for granted even though it is an incomplete THEORY. You do not know that everything you throw up will come down. Just because evolution is an incomplete theory does not mean that it isn't incredibly strong...stronger than ANY OTHER theory about the origins of biodiversity on planet earth. I cannot wait for you to post evidence that something other than evolution and natural selection are taking place and the mechanisms of that/those things.

I'm open to the fact that we dont know everything about Gravity just yet, but this thread is about evolution, and more specifically the missing evidence, this doesnt make the lack of evidence any more plausible.  If you want to discuss the theory of Gravity, start a new thread.

There have been many findings demonstrating that Homo sapiens dates back even earlier than 800,000 years. One of them is a discovery by Louis Leakey in the early 1970s in Olduvai Gorge. Here, in the Bed II layer, Leakey discovered that Australopithecus, Homo habilis and Homo erectus species had co-existed at the same time. What is even more interesting was a structure Leakey found in the same layer (Bed II). Here, he found the remains of a stone hut. The unusual aspect of the event was that this construction, which is still used in some parts of Africa, could only have been built by Homo sapiens! So, according to Leakey's findings, Australopithecus, Homo habilis, Homo erectus and modern man must have co-existed approximately 1.7 million years ago.219 This discovery must surely invalidate the evolutionary theory that claims that modern man evolved from ape-like species such as Australopithecus.<SNIP...Read original post above for exact text>
No we shouldn't, because many scientists still believe that they are A.A. footprints. Just because the author of this particular uncited article says it should be discounted, and they quote one scientist, does not mean that they are not AA footprints.

No, the only reason your 'many' scientists still believe they are A.A footprints is simply because it would destroy their whole theory as it would mean homo species being around at the same time as a.a..  This just goes to show the evolution theory is not science but a blindly supported dogma no matter what scientific findings prove.  Oh and secondly, its not uncited, If you go the source I referenced in my last post you will see the actual reference at the foot (no pun intended!) of the page ((23) Russell H. Tuttle, "The Pitted Pattern of Laetoli Feet," Natural History, vol. 99, March 1990, p. 64.)

Key word: interpretations. So other scientists can and do interpret them in different ways. That is the nature of scientific debate. Even theories like gravity are constantly challenged and debated. There are NO absolutes in science...which is hilairous because GCS makes it seem that science is dogmatic. Well, if you show enough evidence to counter the millions of pieces of fossil evidence that support evolution, then they will accept it. So far, creationists, like GCS cannot disprove the fossil record, only show that there are gaps in it, and in evolutionary theory.

Uh?  Why would I want to disprove the fossil record when it clearly shows that creatures were created suddenly and those that have survived to this day have not changed at all.  The onus is on you to provide the evidence for these huge gaps. 

Some questions for you, GCS:

1. How old is the earth? - No idea, very old.
2. Is the earth static? Do you disagree with plate tectonics? Agree with Plate tectonics
3. Do you deny the big bang? - Certainly wouldnt discount it, sounds plausible.
4. Do you deny that there have been hundreds of millions of species of plants and animals that do not exist right now? NO
5. Why do they not exist, and why do we, and who/what is responsible for their destruction/creation and what evidence do you have of it? Among His signs is the creation of the heavens and Earth and all the creatures He has spread about in them. And He has the power to gather them together whenever He wills. (The Quran - Chapter 26, Verse 29)

I could elaborate on the above but I dont have time here, start another thread.

The Bipedalism Problem....

That is proof of nothing! That is an extremely weak argument. What evidence is there that bipedalism did not arise spontaneously? Why does there have to be something that is somewhere in-between bi-pedalism and quadrapedalism? It can be either or. But let us examine the question from a perspective of natural selection. Let us say that there were transitional entities that were neither quadra-pedal or bi-pedal. Certainly they wouldn't have the ability to compete with either and natural selection would force them in one or the other direction: those that could walk upright would survive and those that could not would die. That's how natural selection works. And just becaue there is no fossil evidence does not mean that there weren't intermediate entities. The fossil record does not have every animal that ever lived. There are things that existed that man will never know about. However, that does not disprove bi-pedal evolution.

You say its proof of nothing but you dont have the evidence to state otherwise.  How long would this gradual evolution of yours take? A long time right? Where's the fossil evidence?  Surely you should have mustered something over this huge time span?

Robin Crompton, senior lecturer in anatomy at Liverpool University, showed that such a "compound" stride was not possible. Crompton reached the following conclusion: A living being can either walk upright, or on all fours.224 A type of stride between the two is impossible because it would involve excessive energy consumption. This is why a half-bipedal being cannot exist.
Duh...those that were neither did not survive. This is evidence of natural selection.

Right But where is the evidence of half-bi pedal fossiles?

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/5479501

A monkey that started walking upright after a near-death experience...which would show that some apes can be FORCED by their environments to walk upright if the environmental pressure is sufficient!

What a Joke, is this the best you can come up with? Its certainly bizarre buts it not your 'missing link' is it?  - And to quote "began walking exclusively on her hind legs after a stomach ailment nearly killed her, " maybe its the fact the monkey's stomach is so fucked that its too painful to try and move otherwise? Face it, if the monkey was a naturally bi-pedal then it would have started walking from day one, not after a stomach problem and Brain Damage!  And whats more its from Israel  I need not say anymore.

Many other issues still remain unexplained, such as brain capacity, the ability to talk, and so on. Elaine Morgan, an evolutionary paleoanthropologist, makes the following confession in relation to this matter:
Four of the most outstanding mysteries about humans are: 1) why do they walk on two legs? 2) why have they lost their fur? 3) why have they developed such large brains? 4) why did they learn to speak?

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/3076710/
Some possible explanations as to why man walks upright.

http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?sec=health&res=9C03E0DE1030F93AA2575BC0A9659C8B63
Some possible explanations as to why we lost our fur.

http://www.sciam.com/askexpert_question.cfm?articleID=0001E851-65EB-1C72-9EB7809EC588F2D7&catID=3
In regards to why we evolved larger brains.

Ive read the above and they are laughable at best, make-believe and pure conjecture.  They are clutching at straws.

A new theory states that the genus Australopithecus is not the root of the human race… The results arrived at by the only woman authorized to examine St W573 are different from the normal theories regarding mankind's ancestors: this destroys the hominid family tree. Large primates, considered the ancestors of man, have been removed from the equation of this family tree… Australopithecus and Homo (human) species do not appear on the same branch. Man's direct ancestors are still waiting to be discovered.

Ok? So she has one theory. As for Australopithecus being the "root" of the human race, I don't see too many people saying that. I see a great number of people saying that we are closely related. There is no direct link from us to them because we appeared millions of years AFTER they had disappeared.

No, they co-existed and this then invalidates your theory - as posted above, I wont repeat it again.

I will finish the rest when I have time...

Please do.

I'll post some more tommorow/

[GodsChosenSoldier]

So whats the benefit as not viewing ourselves as interrelated to all the other living species on earth, does it give us more of a right to have complete dominion over all other "inferior" life forms?

Real quick Im going to comment on this.  You make an interesting point there.  Inferior is the keyword. 

The theory of evolution is a racist ideology.  It attempts to provide a scientific basis for racism.  As it claims we all evolved from monkeys, it states some of us are less evolved.  It see's Black people as inferior and places them at the bottom of an evolutionary ladder with the european races most advanced.  Thus equating Black people with being primitive, less developed and nowhere near as intelligent as their White counterparts and that unlike whites who have fully evolved, Black people stil retain monkey-like features (simian).

Darwin himself said "At some future period, not very distant as measured by centuries, the civilized races of man will almost certainly exterminate and replace the savage races throughout the world. At the same time the anthropomorphous apes... will no doubt be exterminated. The break between man and his nearest allies will then be wider, for it will intervene in a more civilised state, as we may hope, even than the Caucasian, and some ape as low as baboon, instead of as now between the negro or Australian and the gorilla" (Charles Darwin, The Descent of Man, 2nd ed., New York: A.L. Burt Co., 1874, p. 178)

Where he's talking about Australians, he is of course, referring to the native Australians, the Aborigines.

Its a socially damning ideology and if you look historically, it has led to the enslavement of the Black man by its White counterpart - by not even recognizing Blacks as human beings.

[KillJoy]

Whoa whoa, hold on a second!
Although I do agree that most of early science did all it could to prove that european white men where superior to all races and women, that crap has nothing to do with modern evolutionairy theory.
Darwin scratched the surface on many things, even if some of the things he theorized were obviously biased.

Modern anthropologist know for a fact that races are a societal construction, and all human beings on earth today or neither more evolved or less evolved then others.  That's completely irrelevant to modern evolutionairy theory.

Darwin is to evolutionairy theory what Freud is to  psychology.  Both were way off in some respects, but they were theorist that got us closer to the answers we were looking for.

And when I put inferior in quotes, it was me being snarky about how for a long time many religious fundamentalist have viewed other life forms as inferior to us, even though we are all interdependent on each other, and will soon feel the bite of having all these species going extinct.

[OS,JMT,IT]

I just don't understand how people can take religion so seriously...
GCS do you believe in Santa? and The Tooth Fairy?

[KillJoy]

Hah, santa and the tooth fairy were probably created as further means to endoctrinate the religious into believing in fictitious characters from an early point in their life.
That and marketing reasons.

But lets not attack people and stray off subject.