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On the above boxed "Talk.Origins Welcome FAQ" we are told:
To really impress the regulars, come prepared with a scientific Theory of Creation.
To really impress the regulars, come prepared with a scientific Theory of Creation.
This is a strange claim since creationist publications have presented such things (one by Dr. Gish even appears in the anti-creation book "But is it Science"). Even more interesting is when another Talk Origins arcticle wishes to argue for evolution and against the creation theory (with supposed fossil evidence), a theory that "no one's ever seen" then apparently appears: http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/faq-transitional/part1a.html#predThe ToC is the Holy Grail of the origins debate - everyone talks about it, but no one's ever seen it. If you argue against evolution, or imply in any way that creationism is scientific, then you can count on being asked to supply a theory. A scientific theory must have predictive value, must be internally consistent, must be falsifiable, and must explain at least those phenomena explained by the currently dominant theory. Thus, such statements as "God created the heavens and the earth..." are not theories, as they are neither predictive nor falsifiable.
While no one has ever presented a scientific theory of creation to us, we maintain that it is necessary for an honest comparison of various ideas of origins. Because of the properties listed above, theories provide specific points for comparison of the explanatory value of different ideas. Without a predictive, falsifiable theory of creation, it remains impossible to objectively evaluate the idea of creation.
Predictions of creationism and of evolution
Before launching into the transitional fossils, I'd like to run through the two of the major models of life's origins, biblical creationism and modern evolutionary theory, and see what they predict about the fossil record.
- Most forms of creationism hold that all "kinds" were created separately, as described in Genesis. Unfortunately there is no biological definition of "kind"; it appears to be a vague term referring to our psychological perception of types of organisms such as "dog", "tree", or "ant". In previous centuries, creationists equated "kind" to species. With the discovery of more and more evidence for derivation of one species from another, creationists bumped "kind" further up to mean higher taxonomic levels, such as "genus", or "family", though this lumps a large variety of animals in the same "kind". Some creationists say that "kind" cannot be defined in biological terms.
Predictions of creationism: Creationists usually don't state the predictions of creationism, but I'll take a stab at it here. First, though there are several different sorts of creationism, all of them agree that there should be no transitional fossils at all between "kinds". For example, if "kind" means "species", creationism apparently predicts that there should be no species-to-species transitions whatsoever in the fossil record. If "kind" means "genus" or "family" or "order", there should be no species-to-species transitions that cross genus, family, or order lines. Furthermore, creationism apparently predicts that since life did not originate by descent from a common ancestor, fossils should not appear in a temporal progression, and it should not be possible to link modern taxa to much older, very different taxa through a "general lineage" of similar and progressively older fossils.
Other predictions vary with the model of creationism. For instance, an older model of creationism states that fossils were created during six metaphorical "days" that may each have taken millenia to pass. This form of creationism predicts that fossils should be found in the same order outlined in Genesis: seed-bearing trees first, then all aquatic animals and flying animals, then all terrestrial animals, then humans.
In contrast, many modern U.S. creationists believe the "Flood Theory" of the origin of fossils. The "Flood Theory" is derived from a strictly literal reading of the Bible, and states that all geological strata, and the fossils imbedded in them, were formed during the forty-day flood of Noah's time. Predictions of the Flood Theory apparently include the following:
