William,
Now that I know your are not just yanking my chain, I will be glad to.
Quotes involving the evolution of the horse:
"The record of evolution is still surprisingly jerky and, ironically, we have even fewer examples of evolutionary transition than we had in Darwin's time. By this I mean that some of the classic cases of Darwinian change in the fossil record, such as the evolution of the horse in North America, have had to be discarded or modified as a result of more detailed information." —*David Raup, "Conflicts Between Darwin and Paleontology, " in The Field Museum of Natural History. January 1979, p. 25.
"The difference between Eohippus and the modern horse is relatively trivial, yet the two forms are separated by sixty million years and at least ten genera and a great number of species. If ten genera separate Eohippus from the modem horse then think of the uncountable myriads there must have been linking such diverse forms as land mammals and whales or molluscs and arthropods. Yet all these myriads of life forms have vanished mysteriously, without leaving so much as a trace of their existence in the fossil record." —*Michael Denton, Evolution: A Theory in Crisis (1985), pp. 85-86.
"[Othniel C.] Marsh's classic unilineal (straight-line) development of the horse became enshrined in every biology textbook and in a famous exhibit at the American Museum of Natural History. It showed a sequence of mounted skeletons, each one larger and with a more well-developed hoof than the last. (The exhibit is now hidden from public view as an outdated embarrassment.)
"Almost a century later, paleontologist George Gaylord Simpson reexamined horse evolution and concluded that generations of students had been misled. In his book Horses, he showed that there was no simple, gradual unilineal development at all . . It was an easy mistake to make, since only one genus of horse is left today, Equus. Marsh arranged his fossils to 'lead up' to the one surviving species, blithely ignoring many inconsistencies and any contradictory evidence. Ironically, his famous reconstruction of horse evolution was copied by anthropologists. They, too, thought they saw a straight-line lineage 'leading up' to the sole surviving species of a once-varied group: Homo Sapiens." —*R. Milner, Encyclopedia of Evolution (1990), p. 222.
"Traditionally, fossil-hunters had sought magnificent specimens for their museums and exhibited them as a series of individuals, like O.C. Marsh's famous linear 'progression' of individual horse skeletons. Simpson made the evolution of the horse one of his specialties; his detailed quantitative studies, published in his classic book, Horses (1951), exploded Marsh's 'single-line' evolution of the horse from a fox-sized, hoofless ancestor." —*R. Milner, Encyclopedia of Evolution (1990), p. 406.
"The evolution of the horse—both in textbook charts and museum exhibits—has a standard iconography. Marsh began this traditional display in his illustration for Huxley. In doing so, he also initiated an errs that captures pictorially the most common of all misconceptions about the shape and pattern of evolutionary change.
"Each genus is itself a bush of several related species, not a rung on a ladder of progress. These species often lived and interacted in the same area at the same time (as different species of zebra do in Africa today.) One set of strata in Wyoming, for example, has yielded three species of Meeohippus and two of Miohippus, all contemporaries.
"The species of these bushes tend to arise with geological suddenness and then to persist with little change for long periods. Evolutionary change occurs at the branch points themselves, and trends are not continuous marches up ladders, but concatenations of increments achieved at nodes of branching on evolutionary bushes.
"Bushiness now pervades the entire phylogeny of horses.
"The model of the ladder is much more than merely wrong. It never could provide the promised illustration of evolution as progressive and triumphant, for it could only be applied to unsuccessful lineages." —*Steven Jay Gould, "Life's Little Joke," in Natural History April 1987, p. 2425.
"We now know that the evolution of the horse did not always take a simple path. In the first place it is not clear that Hyraootherium was the ancestral horse. Thus Simpson (1945) states, 'Matthew has shown and insisted that Hyraootherium (including Eohippus) is so primitive that it is not more definitely squid than taparid, rhinocerotid,' etc., but it is customary to place it at the root of the squid group." —*G. Kerkut, Implications of Evolution (1960), p. 149.
"The most famous of all squids trends, 'gradually reduction of the side toes' is flatly fictitious. There was no such trend in any line of Equidae. Eocene horses all had digitigrade padded, doglike feet with tour functional toes in front and three behind. In a rapid transition (not actually represented by fossils), early Oligocene horses lost one functional front toe and concentrated weight a little more on the middle hoot as a step-off point. This type persisted without essential change in all browsing horses." —*George Gaylord Simpson, Major Features of Evolution (1953), p. 263.
"Also the fossils of these horses are widely scattered in Europe and North America. There is no place where they occur in rock layers, one above another. There is no sequence that would indicate that the largest developed from the smallest. Some of the difference in size may be accounted for by the difference in feed. In 1942, a herd of horses was found in a box canyon in Southern California. Three of them were caught and lifted out with ropes and pulleys. Due to poor feed, their backs were no higher than a table. Later a colt was born to these captives, and with good feed it grew much larger than its parents. Since a difference in size due to feed is an acquired characteristic, it is not inherited and does not account for permanent changes in a species." —%I. N. Moors and H. E. Slusher, Biology: A Search for Order and Complexity.
The Archaeopteryx seems to bear out the Darwinian concept of birds having evolved from small reptiles, specifically the Coelosaur. Coelosaurs, in common with most other dinosaurs, did not posses collar bones. Archaeopteryx had collar bones. Collar bones are a requirement for birds (or bats) to support the pectorals and the wings.
But even this is moot, as the archaeopteryx is considered to have been a fraud. Since 1980, virtually all prominent scientists who have studied the fossils have charged that the two Archaeopteryx fossils with visible feathers are forgeries.
Darwinists said that if you analyse the DNA you will find how closely or distantly species are related. Animals closely related, such as two reptiles, would have greater similarity in their DNA than animals that are not so closely related. In 1981, molecular biologists at Ann Arbor University decided to test this hypothesis. They took the alpha hemoglobin DNA of a snake and a crocodile said by Darwinists to be closely related, and the hemoglobin DNA of a farmyard chicken.
They found that the two animals who had the least DNA sequences in common were the snake and the crocodile, only around 5%, one twentieth of their hemoglobin DNA. The two creatures whose DNA was closest were the crocodile and the chicken, where there were 17.5% of sequences in common, nearly one fifth. The DNA similarities were the reverse of that predicted by Darwinists, according to Colin Patterson in a presentation to the American Natural History Museum in November 1981
T.L. Moor, paleontologist: "The more one studies paleontology, the more certain one becomes that evolution is based on faith alone." (cited in _Origins?_, BG Ranganathan, p.22)
John T. Bonner: "We [evolutionists] have been telling our students for years not to accept any statement on its face value but to examine the evidence, and therefore it is rather a shock to discover that we have failed to follow our own sound advice." (cited in _The Twilight of Evolution_, Henry M. Morris, p.91)
Miles Eldredge, paleontologist: "We paleontologists have said that the history of life supports [gradual adaptive change], all the while really knowing that it does not." (cited in _Darwin on Trial_, Phillip Johnson, p.59)
Mary Leakey, paleoanthropologist: "All these trees of life with their branches of our ancestors, that's a lot of nonsense." (from an interview with Associated Press, Dec 10 1996)
Charles Darwin: "I am quite conscious that my speculations run quite beyond the bounds of true science." (from a letter to Asa Gray, Harvard biology professor, cited in _Charles Darwin and the Problem of Creation_, N.C. Gillespie, p.2)
Pierre-Paul Grasse, past President of the French Academie des Sciences, Editor of the 35-volume _Traite de Zoologie_: "Today [1977] our duty is to destroy the myth of evolution, considered as a simple, understood and explained phenomenon which keeps rapidly unfolding before us. Biologists must be encouraged to think about the weaknesses and extrapolations that theoreticians put forward or lay down as established truths. The deceit is sometimes unconscious, but not always, since some people, owing to their sectarianism, purposely overlook reality and refuse to acknowledge the inadequacies and falsity of their beliefs."
Bounoure, past Director of Research at the National Center of Scientific Research, France: "Evolutionism is a fairy tale for grownups. This theory has helped nothing in the progress of science. It is useless." (_Le Monde Et La Vie_, Oct 1963)
Art Battson, professor, University of CA - Berkley: "We must bear in mind that just because neo-Darwinian evolution is the most plausible naturalistic explanation of origins, we should not assume that it is necessarily true.... In retrospect, it seems as though Darwinists have been less concerned with the scientific question of accurately explaining the empirical data of natural history, and more concerned with the religious or philosophical question of explaining the design found in nature without a designer. Darwin's general theory of evolution may, in the final analysis, be little more than an unwarranted extrapolation from microevolution based more upon philosophy than fact. The problem is that Darwinism continues to distort natural science." ("Facts, Fossils, and Philosophy", 17 May 1997)
G.A. Kerkut, biochemistry professor at the University of Southampton: "The philosophy of evolution is based upon assumptions that cannot be scientifically verified... Whatever evidence can be assembled for evolution is both limited and circumstantial in nature." (cited in _Biology_, Keith Graham et al, p.363)
Roger Lewin: "It is in fact a common fantasy, promulgated mostly by the scientific profession itself, that in the search for objective truth, data dictate conclusions. Data are just as often molded to fit preferred conclusions." (_Bones of Contention_, p.68)
David Pilbeam: "I have come to believe that many statements we make about the how and whys of human evolution say as much about us, the paleoanthropologists and the larger society in which we live, as about anything that really happened." (cited in _Bones of Contention_, Roger Lewin, p.85)
W.R. Thompson, Introduction to _Origin of the Species_ by Darwin: "This situation, where men rally to the defense of a doctrine they are unable to define scientifically, much less demonstrate with scientific rigor, attempting to maintain its credit with the public by the suppression of criticism and the elimination of difficulties, is abnormal and undesirable in science.... I am not satisfied that Darwin proved his point or that his influence in scientific and public thinking has been beneficial."
Francis Crick, Nobel Prize recipient for discovery of DNA structure: "Every time I write a paper on the origin of life, I determine I will never write another one, because there is too much speculation running after too few facts." (_Life Itself_, p.153)
John Ambrose Fleming, President British Assoc. for Advancement of Science: "Evolution is baseless and quite incredible." (_The Unleashing of Evolutionary Thought_)
Michael Denton: "The hold of the evolutionary paradigm is so powerful that an idea which is more like a principle of medieval astrology than a serious 20th century scientific theory has become a reality for evolutionary biologists.... The overriding supremacy of the myth has created a widespread illusion that the theory of evolution was all but proved 100 years ago and that all subsequent biological research - paleontological, zoological and in the newer branches of genetics and molecular biology - has provided ever-increasing evidence of Darwinian ideas... There has always existed a significant minority of first-rate biologists who have never been able to bring themselves to accept the validity of Darwinian claims. In fact, the number of biologists who have expressed some degree of disillusionment is practically endless... Ultimately the Darwinian theory of evolution is no more nor less than the great cosmogenic myth of the 20th century. Like the Genesis-based cosmology which it replaced, and like the creation myths of ancient man, it satisfies the same deep psychological need for an all-embracing explanation for the origin of the world which has motivated all the cosmogenic myth makers of the past." (_Evolution: A Theory in Crisis_, p.306, 327, 358.)
Dr. Colin Patterson, paleontologist at the British Museum of Natural History: "The explanatory value of the hypothesis of common ancestry is nil... I feel that the effects of the hypotheses of common ancestry in systematics has not been merely boring, not just a lack of knowledge, I think it has been positively anti-knowledge... Well, we're back to the question I've been putting to people: 'Is there one thing you can tell me about evolution?' The absence of answers seems to suggest that it is true: evolution does not convey any knowledge, or if so, I haven't yet heard it." (from speech at the American Museum of Natural History, NYC, Nov 5, 1981)
Louis Agassiz, Harvard professor, pioneer in glaciation: "The theory of evolution is a scientific mistake." (cited in H. Enoch, _Evolution or Creation_, p.139)
S. Lovtrup, professor of zoophysiology at Universityof Umea, Sweden: "I have already shown that the arguments advanced by the early champions [of Darwinian theory of natural selection] were not very compelling, and that there are now [1987] considerable numbers of empirical facts which do not fit with the theory. Hence, to all intents and purposes the theory has been falsified, so why has it not been abandoned?" (_Darwinism: The Refutation of a Myth_ p.352)
Steven Jay Gould, paleontologist: "We are left with very little time between the development of suitable conditions for life on the Earth's surface and the origin of life... Life apparently arose about as soon as the Earth became cool enough to support it." ("An Early Start", _Natural History_, Feb 1978)
"The extreme rarity of transitional forms in the fossil record persists is the trade secret of paleontology... In any local area, a species does not arise gradually by the steady transformation of its ansectors; it appears all at once and fully formed." ("Evolution's Erratic Pace", _Natural History_, May 1977)
"I regard the failure to find a clear 'vector of progress' in life's history as the most puzzling fact of the fossil record... We have sought to impose a pattern that we hoped to find on a world that does not really display it." ("The Ediacaran Experiment", _Natural History_, Feb 1984)
"Paleontologists have paid an exorbitant price for Darwin's argument. We fancy ourselves as the only true students of life's history, yet to preserve our favored account of evolution by natural selection we view our data as so bad that we almost never see the very process we profess to study." (_The Panda's Thumb_, p.181)
sorry about the different fonts, I can't seem to fix it.
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