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I indulged myself and took a closer look at your websites:
Spencer used the results of Berthault, but Berthault's observations do not invalidate superposition whatsoever. Newer layers still appear on older layers. Berthault's results duplicate a case where the layers are not laid down horizontally, but the principle of superposition does not require horizontal depositional surfaces. Berthault errs in confusing the principle of superposition with the principle of original horizontality, which was already known to have limited application. Berthault's experiments only duplicate results which were familiar to sedimentologists decades earlier. There is nothing of significance in his work.
http://www.talkorigins.org/indexcc/CD/CD240.html
http://www.gennet.org/facts/metro11.html
Menton is a known misquoter and distorter of the fossil record. Here's some examples of what he states:
| quote: | | Evolutionists believe that fossilized organisms were gradually deposited in layers of sediment over hundreds of millions of years, giving us a visual record of at least some of the stages of evolution from the first simple organisms to the most complex. |
Not necessarily a rule. Vestiges and appendiges are often lost during evolutionary processes, if the survival of that population requires it. This does not entail simple->complex, and a more objective and universal term of "complex" is needed here for clarification.
| quote: | | To be consistent with evolution, the fossil record should show how organisms slowly transformed one into another through countless intermediate or transitional stages. Evolutionists, for example, claim that over one hundred million years were required for the gradual transformation of invertebrates into vertebrates; thus we would expect that the fossil record should show at least some of the progressive stages of this large-scale transformation. To be consistent with creation, on the other hand, the fossil record should show no obvious transitional stages between distinctly different kinds of organisms, but rather each kind of organism should appear all at once and fully formed. |
I have yet to hear a working, objective definition of "kind" by any creationist. Perhaps you could be the first? Define "kind" for me, please.
| quote: | It is now a generally recognized fact that the fossil record shows few if any unambiguous intermediate stages in the evolution of an organism into a distinctly different kind of organism. David B. Kitts, an evolutionist and paleontologist, said:
"Despite the bright promise that paleontology provides a means of 'seeing' evolution, it has presented some nasty difficulties for evolutionists the most notorious of which is the presence of 'gaps' in the fossil record. Evolution requires intermediate forms between species and paleontology does not provide them." (Evolution, 28:467) |
Well lo and behold, we have another misquotation!:
http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/quo...-3.html#quote54
My goodness, who woulda thunk it? A creationist misquoting and misunderstanding an evolutionist?
| quote: | Even most currently living kinds of plants and animals have been found in essentially their present form in the fossil record! David Raup, a paleontologist at the Field Museum of Natural History, reported that the growth in our knowledge of the fossil record since Darwin's time provides even less support for evolutionary transformations. Raup writes:
"We are now about 120 years after Darwin and the knowledge of the fossil record has been greatly expanded. We now have a quarter of a million fossil species but the situation hasn't changed much -- 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." (Field Museum of Natural History Bulletin, 50:22-29) |
Raup is also noted for saying the following:
"[t]he practicing paleontologist is obliged to place any newly found fossil in the Linnean system of taxonomy. Thus, if one finds a birdlike reptile or a reptilelike bird (such as Archaeopteryx), there is no procedure in the taxonomic system for labeling and classifying this as an intermediate between the two classes Aves and Reptilia. Rather, the practicing paleontologist must decide to place his fossil in one category or the other. The impossibility of officially recognising transitionary forms produces an artificial dichotomy between biologic groups. It is conventional to classify Archaeopteryx as a bird. I have no doubt, however, that if it were permissible under the rules of taxonomy to put Archaeopteryx in some sort of category intermediate between birds and reptiles that we would indeed do that."(1983, p.157)
Kinda conflicts with his earlier statement just a tad. Methinks misquoting is the likely culprit here, yet again.
| quote: | Some evolutionists have argued that the absence of transitional forms is simply an "artifact" of classification. Others insist that the gaps occur only among the higher taxonomic groups, while still others insist that the gaps occur only among the lower taxonomic groups. The evolutionist George Gaylord Simpson conceded, however, that the gaps are a universal phenomenon:
"...every paleontologist knows, that most new species, genera, and families, and that nearly all categories above the level of families appear in the record suddenly and are not led up to by known, gradual, completely continuous transitional sequences." (Major Features of Evolution, 1953 p. 360) |
http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/quo...-2.html#quote20
Do you not see a pattern of complete distortion here? Why do you buy into this shit?
| quote: | As for the lowest level of taxonomic classification, the popular evolutionist Steven J. Gould said:
"In any local area, a species does not arise gradually by the steady transformation of its ancestors; it appears all at once and fully formed." (Natural History, 86:12-16) |
http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/quo...ne/part1-2.html
Wow, what incredible material you've discovered.
But to sum up their arguments, no evolutionist disputes or loses sleep over the gaps in the fossil record. This is an unfortunate consequence of natural events. But why should there be a complete lineage? A very good example of why the fossil record is incomplete is the passenger pigeon. This bird went extinct in the early 20th century. When european settlers first came to north america these birds numbered in the billions. In fact, they were the most populous bird species of their era, no other bird species outnumbered them. Settlers reported seeing flocks that were miles in diameter. Guess how many passenger pigeon fossils have been found? Absolutely zero. The most successful bird species of the last 1,000 years and we have zero fossils to evidence it's being alive.
By your standards, I suppose they just simply never existed?
It's an common strawman argument for creationists to argue about the incompleteness of the fossil record. There is absolutely no mechanism that explains in any logical manner a creationist explanation of the paleontological record.
These arguments are quite dated and easily logically refuted. You need to come to grips with the fact that it is propaganda being sold to you, and it has no place in scientific inquiry.
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Whence September dusk grows crisper still,
with leaves all crimson conquered,
I yearn to shout,
and dance about,
and stick pickles in my honker...
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