Over at Atheist Central, the blog of Ray Comfort, the esteemed defender of the Faith sees no evidence for evolution and accuses the "atheist believer in evolution" of asserting "mountains of evidence" when there is absolutely none...in his words, "not even a mole hill." He writes that when the person he was responding to listed diverse fields of evidence (just the fields, mind you, not the evidence within each field) and put "etc." afterwards, it was an indication that "he believes there are even more mountains [of evidence], somewhere." Actually, having answered this question numerous times, it is an indication that the evidence is so massive that a simple, paragraph-length list is impossible. Entire books have been written dealing with the evidence for evolution, both overall and in a topic-specific treatment (like Donald Prothero's Evolution: What the Fossils Say and Why it Matters on the evidence from paleontology and geology).
Like the statement that evolution is a fact (as well as being a theory), the statement that there are "mountains of evidence" for evolution isn't hand-waving or propaganda, it is reality, and it has been reality for decades. Unfortunately, creationists haven't noticed this, and as science passes them by they continue to deny the reality of the world around them, no different in that respect from the Flat-Earth Society or those who keep insisting that the Sun revolves around the Earth (they still exist, sadly).
Comfort singles out the fossil record, saying that it is a collection of fossils rather than a "record", and it certainly says nothing in support of evolution. I think he must be reading Duane Gish's oft-refuted Evolution--The Fossils Say NO! rather than anything scientific. The fossils in the Earth are a record, one that speaks to evolution rather than the special creation of creationist thought. We see layers in the geologic strata that encapsulate distinct periods in Earth's history with distinct animals. The lower levels have trilobites and other strange animals like Dimetrodon that stop at a point in time; then we have a time with archeosaurs and dinosaurs, then with a wide number of strange extinct mammals with small precursors in the time of dinosaurs. At last, only in strata in the last seven to eight million years, we see the emergence of apes and humanoid creatures, finally leading to what we refer to as anatomically, and then behaviorally, modern humans. Species come and go, some staying in existence for millions of years, even up until the present, while others, even entire groups of life forms, wink out of existence in a geological blink of an eye. Evolution explains this; creationism does not.
The fossil record does not support the arguments of the creationists, not by a long shot. Of that we can be absolutely certain, based on the diligent work of paleontologists for the past one hundred years. The fossils are indeed a record, one that charts the beginnings and diversification of life on Earth into an endless parade of forms from the mundane to the outright bizarre. Creationists like Comfort, and Ken Ham, are right to fear the truth about the fossil record, for it puts the lie to all of their arguments about a young earth and a global Flood. Their spin and outright falsehoods about the fossils don't change what we can see; their proposed mechanisms to explain away the obvious succession in the fossil record (hydraulic sorting by the Flood of Noah) are nonsensical and fail to explain just why, if there was a Flood, flowering plants still appear in the fossil record long after ferns. After all, while creationists assert that humans could long outrun the Flood, plants can't move at all, and there is no reason why flowering plants should be higher in the fossil record than earlier plants if creationism were true. There is no reason why trilobites should show change over time, into different species. Were the creationist explanation true, all species of trilobite, being roughly the same size, should be all mixed together.
One has to wonder if Comfort is just that ignorant or simply ignores and explains away all contrary evidence to what he wants to believe about the world and its history. I suspect that, given the availability of science material and the recent batch of highly readable books about the evidence for evolution, it is the latter. Comfort, like many outspoken creationists, will not allow the existence of any contrary evidence in his mind. He sees no evidence, hears no evidence and never will admit that there is any evidence.
No rational person could hold this position, but having read a number of his previous posts on the topic of science, Ray Comfort is not a rational person. He's an embarrassment, both to himself and to the faith he so ardently defends.
Like the statement that evolution is a fact (as well as being a theory), the statement that there are "mountains of evidence" for evolution isn't hand-waving or propaganda, it is reality, and it has been reality for decades. Unfortunately, creationists haven't noticed this, and as science passes them by they continue to deny the reality of the world around them, no different in that respect from the Flat-Earth Society or those who keep insisting that the Sun revolves around the Earth (they still exist, sadly).
Comfort singles out the fossil record, saying that it is a collection of fossils rather than a "record", and it certainly says nothing in support of evolution. I think he must be reading Duane Gish's oft-refuted Evolution--The Fossils Say NO! rather than anything scientific. The fossils in the Earth are a record, one that speaks to evolution rather than the special creation of creationist thought. We see layers in the geologic strata that encapsulate distinct periods in Earth's history with distinct animals. The lower levels have trilobites and other strange animals like Dimetrodon that stop at a point in time; then we have a time with archeosaurs and dinosaurs, then with a wide number of strange extinct mammals with small precursors in the time of dinosaurs. At last, only in strata in the last seven to eight million years, we see the emergence of apes and humanoid creatures, finally leading to what we refer to as anatomically, and then behaviorally, modern humans. Species come and go, some staying in existence for millions of years, even up until the present, while others, even entire groups of life forms, wink out of existence in a geological blink of an eye. Evolution explains this; creationism does not.
The fossil record does not support the arguments of the creationists, not by a long shot. Of that we can be absolutely certain, based on the diligent work of paleontologists for the past one hundred years. The fossils are indeed a record, one that charts the beginnings and diversification of life on Earth into an endless parade of forms from the mundane to the outright bizarre. Creationists like Comfort, and Ken Ham, are right to fear the truth about the fossil record, for it puts the lie to all of their arguments about a young earth and a global Flood. Their spin and outright falsehoods about the fossils don't change what we can see; their proposed mechanisms to explain away the obvious succession in the fossil record (hydraulic sorting by the Flood of Noah) are nonsensical and fail to explain just why, if there was a Flood, flowering plants still appear in the fossil record long after ferns. After all, while creationists assert that humans could long outrun the Flood, plants can't move at all, and there is no reason why flowering plants should be higher in the fossil record than earlier plants if creationism were true. There is no reason why trilobites should show change over time, into different species. Were the creationist explanation true, all species of trilobite, being roughly the same size, should be all mixed together.
One has to wonder if Comfort is just that ignorant or simply ignores and explains away all contrary evidence to what he wants to believe about the world and its history. I suspect that, given the availability of science material and the recent batch of highly readable books about the evidence for evolution, it is the latter. Comfort, like many outspoken creationists, will not allow the existence of any contrary evidence in his mind. He sees no evidence, hears no evidence and never will admit that there is any evidence.
No rational person could hold this position, but having read a number of his previous posts on the topic of science, Ray Comfort is not a rational person. He's an embarrassment, both to himself and to the faith he so ardently defends.
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