Creationists 'peddle lies about fossil record'
By Lucy Cockcroft
Last Updated: 12:01am GMT 28/02/2008

A leading scientist accuses creationists of peddling the lie that there is no fossil evidence of evolution

Some Christians claim there is a lack of "missing link" fossils, halfway between two major groups of creatures.

They say this proves Charles Darwin's theory of evolution is a fallacy and that God created each living species from nothing.

But, in an essay published in the magazine New Scientist today, geologist Donald Prothero claims that reports of "huge gaps" in the fossil records have been greatly exaggerated.

Dr Prothero, a professor of geology at Occidental College in Los Angeles, said: "Life does not progress up a hierarchical ladder from 'low' to 'high' but is a branching bush with numerous lineages splitting apart and coexisting simultaneously.

"For example, apes and humans split from a common ancestor seven million years ago and both lineages are still around.

"For this reason the concept of 'missing link' is a misleading one. A transitional form does not need to be a perfect halfway house directly linking one group of organisms to another.

"It merely needs to record aspects of evolutionary change that occurred as one lineage split from another."

When Darwin first proposed the idea of evolution by natural selection in 1859, the fossil record offered little support. He even devoted two entire chapters of the Origin of Species to the imperfection of the geological record, but predicted that it would eventually support his theories.

Full story, source: The Telegraph

This isn't exactly new news...

It's not surprising that they would do it. Now, with the web, they can get their ideas out there and try to convince as many uneducated people as possible.

yeah, I for one hate those people, If they have faith in God why do those things. are they doubtful on what they believe that they must take actions like that.. shesh.

I know! Their faith should not be shaken by other's beliefs, and they should not have to convince others that their way is the only way.

Now rather than attracting people to believe on what they believe, they are now shooing off people doing those stuffs, claiming something so exaggerated. what will people believe if they won't have faith themselves.

It's pretty sad. I just don't get their thought process.

Yes, well it is virtually impossible to get through to Play Dough people that everything does not have to occur in a magical special effects fashion to be the work of God.

While looking up how early crude stone tools were made I came accross this website that somewhat directly relates to this thread although here the creationists are using dated artefacts and claims that they could not have been made and still fit in the human evolution accepted timeline theory. http://www.thestoneage.org/stone_age_introduction.php.

The first page of this website intrigued me at first because they definately make some interesting points in my very limited and humble view. The conclusion made it all clear from where there view stems.

In this day of age is it should be easy enough for scientists to do video demonstrations to prove what is possible one way or the other to disprove such nonsense.

Also I should point out that I understand and agree with evolutionary theory and my post is concerned with the use of technology at some given point in time- not in questioning the fossil record. But it is the same overall argument, Creation Vs. Science I agree with the premise of this thread. I just quest for more info on how and when specific technologies came into being.

I'm always cautious when I spot the word "evolutionist" in the first sentence of the first paragraph, it's usually an indication that there is a certain amount of bias built in to the information.

I for one would not consider the holes in those rocks as "perfect", some of them are not completely round, nor are they the same size on a bead.

I wasn't able to come up with an example of a stone drill, but i did find this interesting article which suggests that flint drills were in use some 9000 ya.

Source: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/4882968.stm

There have been plenty of demonstrations of drilling using ancient techniques on TV. Just about every show about egypt shows somebody using a bow drill, a device that's been around for at least ten thousand years. The same can be accomplished with a straight stick tipped with flint or quartz using the same techniques you'd use to start a fire. Drilling only requires that the abbrasive used is slightly harder than what you're drilling. Quartz and flint are fine for most stones though a granite would require a quartzite sand (extremely common) or diamond. Also, no matter the shape of the tip used a rotating motion will create a near perfect circle.

So then, this fact and the rest of the artefacts from that website can be explained the same way in your estimation or does the timeline need help with regards to tool technology?

And I completely agree and understand that the website is progoganda, but is there any truth to be gleaned from what it proposes of the 'dated artefacts'? I am satisfied that the answer is NO.

Your answer leads me to another question: I have the whitest white sand beach I have ever seen. Would this sand likely be quartzite sand, or at least a mix including a lot of quartzite? How do I test it? Scrath a granite counter with it?

This is just another example of some pretty smart and talented people 9000 years ago, using technology that subsequently was lost, that looks as good as my dentists work when I was a kid. Very cool stuff. The dates on the website I refferred to used examples they claim are all around 10-11,000 BCE. That is not very far back in the human evolutionary theory, so I guess another prime example of mis-information.

No. The dating seems right but their conclusions are very wrong. For one, archeologists don't consider stone-age man to be primitive in the manner this site is trying to posture. Then you get the common claims of impossibility from these sites which are misleading and wrong. A couple examples that jump right out are things like the claim you can't make nice holes by hitting rocks together. This is true. It's also true that that isn't how the holes were made and nobody is claiming they were. We have evidence of microlith-drilled teeth at least 9000 years old. We have microlith drilled beads going back incredibly far. It's a common creationist tactic to claim that science is saying things it isn't by using outdated quotes or just straight up lying then, oddly enough, using science when it suits them to support their theories. Another outright lie is that you can't shape obsidian by hitting it with a stone. In fact, obsidian is one of the best knapping materials out there. How they can purport something so clearly false is really mind boggling. That was just from a quick perusal of the pictures. After such blantant inaccuracies I could really bring myself to devote any time to the article.

I just want to add that even if to us humans looked like "primitives" 20.000 years ago, there were already many of the social structures that we have still today. Far distance trade was first demonstrated about 12.000 years ago.... These were no primitives, they were just not technological at a level we would recognize as civilized.