Does teaching evolution harm Christianity?

UTEOTW

It would not be surprising that humans and some apes share retroviral insertions such as the AIDS virus. Now, I do not know if this is fact, but it has been stated by many and often that AIDS was spread to humans through eating (and other methods)apes.

Here is an article on just that.

http://www.thenazareneway.com/aids_came_from_monkeys.htm

So, there are definitely alternate explanations or theories to account for this similarity besides evolution.

 

That's pretty interesting JWI.

I liked the last part where it discussed taking many years for the relationship between a host and virus to stabilize.

So, in answer to UTE's proposed problem, a virus spread from apes to men leaving an insert in the DNA of both but since they stablized independently there will be variants as well as similarities. The more commonalities two species share, the more alike their reactions to the virus will be. So chimps responded more like humans than monkeys did. Pretty much what the data erroneously cited as proof of common ancestory yields.

This is also something that I speculated on while debating this same issue with UTE awhile back. He scoffed that I had no proof.

 

JWI

You sell the retrovirus inserts short.

It is not just that they have been infected with the same virus.

The same virus has inserted the exact same stretch of DNA into the exact same location in the genome. These insertions have been observed to be completely random so how do yu explain the exact same sequence at the exact same locations.

Over.

And over.

And over.

And over.

And over.

Remember that a few percent of your genome is such inserts.

And did you check out the quotes you have "provided" us in context over the last few pages? Any reactions?

Did you check out the further quotes from your own sources talking about all the observed transitionals? Any reaction?

Did you check out the post dealing with how PE is based on observed trends in the fossil record and not, as your continually assert, on a lack of evidence? Any reaction?

 

"So, in answer to UTE's proposed problem, a virus spread from apes to men leaving an insert in the DNA of both but since they stablized independently there will be variants as well as similarities. The more commonalities two species share, the more alike their reactions to the virus will be. So chimps responded more like humans than monkeys did. Pretty much what the data erroneously cited as proof of common ancestory yields.

This is also something that I speculated on while debating this same issue with UTE awhile back. He scoffed that I had no proof."

YOu still have none.

It is not how the various species reacted to teh virus. It is that the exact same sequence is inserted into the exact same locations in the genome. These insertions have been observed to be completely random.

So the question is how do you account for the same sequence being inserted at the same location, then passed on through germ line cells and then fixed into the entire population? And then repeat this sequence until you have enough such shared inserts to account for a sizable percentage of the genome.

Your ad hoc story really addresses none of these issues.

There still is not an alternate explanation.

 

If the virus attacks the two species' dna in the same way and the coded reaction is the same, there is no reason for this not to occur. The probability of it happening twice is not diminished by it happening once... and in this case, common design makes the second occurrence more likely than it otherwise would be.

Just another double standard since you have no trouble believing in parallel events of greater improbability than this when they support evolution.

Observed by who, when, where, and how? Were all insertions observed or just a sample? Were all of the observed insertions completely random? How was this "randomness" determined? What controls were placed on the experiments/observations?

What was the condition of the genome of the subjects? Were they very pure as animals newly under the curse of sin would have been?

 

Let's try a mind experiment.

Two species are attacked by a virus at the cellular level. Only those with the genetic ability to "stabilize" the virus in a specific sequence survive out of both species. Only those survivors reproduce.

The only thing "random" is that the survivors were genetically fitted to accommodate the virus while those who died weren't. This mind experiment would predict results that to an evolutionist would be both homologous and analogous... and I am pretty sure that's what the data for retroviral inserts shows.

If these species were descendents of created kinds however the "randomness" of the inserts is no longer random but according to the expected pattern.

 

Again, the biggest problem here for your ad hoc story telling is that retroviral inserts are observed to be completely random. There are billions of base pairs in the genome. So for two species to share an insert it would be necessary for the exact same virus to insert the exact same sequence in the exact same location in the genome. PLus the whole part about it being in a germ line cell, used for reproduction and then the insert becoming fixed into the population.

Since a sizable percentage of the genome is made up of such inserts, you now must propose this happening over and over and over and over.

You ask how do we know it is random. Simple. We have retroviruses among us today. AIDS is an example. It is likely the most studied virus ever. There are many others. We can directly observe that the insertions are random.

So it all comes back to the same problem for you. Species share these inserts. The pattern of the specific inserts that are shared and the accumulated mutations in the inserts all fit the pattern expected for common descent from other, independent methods. You have an ad hoc story, but it is not supported by the observations. Observations support the common descent explanation.

It is also yet another example of the congruence that we have of phylogenies from widely varied sources.

 

Here are some references showing the inserts to be random.

Varmus, H. E. & Swanstrom, R. (1984) in RNA Tumor Viruses, eds. Weiss, R., Teich, N. M., Varmus, H. E. & Coffin, J. M. (Cold Spring Harbor Lab. Press, Plainview, NY), pp. 369-512.

Brown, P. O. (1997) in Retroviruses, eds. Coffin, J. M., Hughes, S. H. & Varmus, H. E. (Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Press, Plainview, NY).

Withers-Ward, E. S., Kitamura, Y., Barnes, J. P. & Coffin, J. M. (1994) Genes Dev. 8, 1473-1487 - http://www.pnas.org/cgi/ijlink?linkType=ABST&journalCode=genesdev&resid=8/12/1473

Maeda, N. & Kim, H. S. (1990) Genomics 8, 671-683 - http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=retrieve&db=pubmed&list_uids=2177446&dopt=Abstract

The last one goes back to phylogenies. And so does the next one.

http://www.pnas.org/cgi/content/full/96/18/10254

With a quote.

 

UTEOTW

First, I have read many (not all) of your responses to my quote mines. I have said from the beginning that most of these quotes were from people who continued to believe in evolution despite admitting serious problems. I do not necessarily accept their THEORETICAL explanations for these problems however.

I intentionally try to find quotes from evolutionists. It is no problem to find articles from creationists, many of whom give good scientific reasons why evolution cannot be true. But you would never listen to them. So, I have tried to show that many evolutionists have BIG problems with the very theory they espouse.

This is why I bring up Punk Eek over and over. It is still a popular theory with evolutionists, I have looked up many current (2005) articles on it. So it has not been abandoned whatsoever.

It is not a scientific theory in any respect. It cannot be tested. And despite your claims, it cannot be observed either.

In the beginning, evolution predicted a slow, gradual transition from one species to another. It was expected to find fossils that showed this slow, gradual transition. But fossils like this were not (and still have not) been found. This has been admitted by many evolutionists repeatedly. I have showed many of these quotes.

At first evolutionists tried to explain this lack of fossils by saying that enough fossils had not been found. But after over 100 years, many fossils have been found. But the problem remained. Species appeared and disappeared abruptly. There were no clear-cut transitionals.

So the theory of Punk Eek and the Hopeful Monster where invented to explain this "gap" between fossils. There is no getting around this. These theories would not have been necessary if gradual transitional fossils were found.

But you completely refuse to admit the OBVIOUS. I do not understand how any honest person can overlook this fact of history.

The problem with Punk Eek is that now fossils that are very different, that in the past were interpreted by evolutionists themselves a showing a huge gap, can now be claimed as transitionals. Punk Eek actually argues that large gaps that in the past were unacceptable as evidence of evolution are now evidence.

And now, in an obvious case of circular reasoning, you and other dogmatic evolutionists claim that these very fossils that in the past disproved evolution, are now real scientific evidence for evolution. You argue that the true fossil record shows large gaps (true) that is predicted by Punk Eek.

Now, if that isn't self-deceived I don't know what is.

And you and others try to call this science. It is pure circular reasoning.

As to the most recent posts, AIDS is said to be very new to human beings. The last article I showed says it began to appear in humans back to around 1940-1950. It was unknown before that time. So this is hardly evidence for a evolutionary relationship between apes and men.

"Experts believe that HIV - the virus that causes AIDS - is a recent affliction of people. At a Conference on Retroviruses and Opportunistic Infections, Dr. David Ho and others from the Aaron Diamond AIDS Research Center at Rockefeller University presented evidence that the virus probably first infected humans in the 1940s or early '50s."

This fits historic evidence. AIDS was unknown in humans until very recently. If it has been present in humans beings for thousands or even millions of years as evolutionists claim, we would have known about this disease long ago. But we did not.

So, your argument is very poor.

 

"In the beginning, evolution predicted a slow, gradual transition from one species to another. It was expected to find fossils that showed this slow, gradual transition. But fossils like this were not (and still have not) been found. This has been admitted by many evolutionists repeatedly. I have showed many of these quotes."

And that is where you make your mistake.

It is not, repeat NOT, that transitional fossils have not been found.

The "problem" is that over and over what IS found is not a slow, gradual, linear change like what was expected back in the day of Darwin.

The fossil record reveals that changes happen in a jerky, branching manner. Go back to my quotes from the folks who actually proposed PE. They say that they based the theory on OBSERVERD TRENDS in the fossil record. They even list some of the specific series in which they observed these trends.

So it is false to keep saying that it is based on a lack of evidence. It is based on observation.

The other important thing that you overlook is that these trends are only applicable for changes at the species level. It does not apply at higher levels. There are numerous examples of transitional series between higher groups. If you remember, I gave you a VERY long post detailing the transition from reptiles to mammals and briefly descibing each of a few dozen fossil along the way. Here is a link to the same list in a different post since I cannot remember in which thread I posted this for you.

http://www.baptistboard.com/ubb/ultimatebb.php/topic/36/261.html#000000

 

"As to the most recent posts, AIDS is said to be very new to human beings. The last article I showed says it began to appear in humans back to around 1940-1950. It was unknown before that time. So this is hardly evidence for a evolutionary relationship between apes and men.

"Experts believe that HIV - the virus that causes AIDS - is a recent affliction of people. At a Conference on Retroviruses and Opportunistic Infections, Dr. David Ho and others from the Aaron Diamond AIDS Research Center at Rockefeller University presented evidence that the virus probably first infected humans in the 1940s or early '50s."

This fits historic evidence. AIDS was unknown in humans until very recently. If it has been present in humans beings for thousands or even millions of years as evolutionists claim, we would have known about this disease long ago. But we did not.

So, your argument is very poor."

I have no idea what you are getting at here. No where have I claimed that AIDS is in any way evidence for human evolution.

What I have said is that the shared retroviral inserts between the species is excellent evidence for common descent.

Now I used AIDS as an example of a current retrovirus that has been studied extensively. The main purpose there was to establish that retroviruses have been well studied and that we can safely conclude that their insertions into the genome are randomly located.

If you will look a few posts above, I have folloed that up with several refrences to published materials that show that in modern tests with such viruses, that the assertion of random insertion has been repeatedly observed.

 

UTEOTW said,

"I have no idea what you are getting at here. No where have I claimed that AIDS is in any way evidence for human evolution."


"Now I used AIDS as an example of a current retrovirus that has been studied extensively. The main purpose there was to establish that retroviruses have been well studied and that we can safely conclude that their insertions into the genome are randomly located."

Well... Pardon me for thinking that you were using AIDS as evidence for evolution. Perhaps you should not have mentioned AIDS.

But we'll move on. If I was mistaken I am sorry.

Here is a very interesting article from a creationist site on Homology. I think you will enjoy it, although I am certain you will disagree.


http://www.answersingenesis.org/tj/v15/i1/homology.asp


I only go to this subject because to me the main proof or evidence to evolutionists is similarity. To me, this does not necessarily prove relation at all. I see similar structure used for similar purpose as being very practical.

I mean, do evolutionists expect that all creatures would have completely different structure if creation were true??

Anyway, give the article a read.

 

UTEOTW

Here is a recent article that I find quite humorous.

http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2004-12/uocm-uoc122304.php

This article says that human being are very DIFFERENT from other animals.

No kidding. That's what the Bible says too.

But what is so funny is how this article tries to explain this by evolution.

Some comments I find amusing;

"Humans evolved their cognitive abilities not due to a few accidental mutations, but rather, from an enormous number of mutations acquired though exceptionally intense selection favoring more complex cognitive abilities"

Comment- Enormous number of mutations?? Even evolutionists admit that favorable mutations are very rare. Evolutionists believe man to be one of the most recent creatures on earth.

So, how did man who is so recent have time for this "enormous" amount of mutations??

I see, they explain it at the end.

"The making of the large human brain is not just the neurological equivalent of making a large antler. Rather, it required a level of selection that's unprecedented," Lahn said. "Our study offers the first genetic evidence that humans occupy a unique position in the tree of life. Simply put, evolution has been working very hard to produce us humans."

Unique position???

So, I guess we aren't so similar to chimps after all.

Similarities are fine. But what about the enormous differences????

 

"Well... Pardon me for thinking that you were using AIDS as evidence for evolution. Perhaps you should not have mentioned AIDS.

But we'll move on. If I was mistaken I am sorry."

No need to apologize, mistakes happen. AIDS was only mentioned to say that we have intensely studied retroviruses as support for the assertion that we have enough observationsal evidence to know that the insertions are random.

I'd also prefer not to move on. There is still an outstanding question on these inserts. We still do not know how to string all of the necessary steps together to get these observations in a recently and independently created kinds scenario.

"Here is a very interesting article from a creationist site on Homology. I think you will enjoy it, although I am certain you will disagree."

It is interesting, but it is also incomplete. It, one, leaves out the details which make the areguments much more powerful in reality than the strawman versions that he presents. Second, it tries to divide the many independent lines of evidence in an attempt to raise doubt in a single one when it would be much more difficult to deal with the congruence you get when comparing many different lines of evidence. There is also the curious mixing of quotes from scientists and YEers in a way in which the reader could be confused as to the position of the person who was quoted.

One of the first bits that he attempts to deal with is the homology of the tetropod forelimbs. He claims that these structures are only considered to be homologous because of a prior assumption of evolution to begin with. But he ignores the vast evidence that shows that these creatures are actually related through common descent.

He claims that the forelimbs of the horses, whales, humans and birds "serve similar functions and have similar design constraints." I must question his logic at this point. I do not understand how he can say that an arm, a leg, a wing and a flipper all have similar function.

But he claims that they do without explanation. The logical question that pops out from this is as follows. Surely one would agree that the function and design constraints when comparing the flippers of a whale and those of a shark would be much closer that that of a whale flipper to an arm or a leg. So, if he wants to call upon common design, why are these structures not of the same design for whales and for sharks?

There could be many other such examples where a common designer is arbitrarily postulated to explain homology but then not applied in cases where it would seem to be even more logical.

He also glosses over the details in his comparison of the Tasmanian Tiger to canines. This is a very good example of convergent evolution. There are really many excellent examples of such. But the appearance is only superficial. A layman examining the two might have really had a difficult time in telling them apart. But if you were to take someone skilled in morphology, that would have no difficulty at all pointing out the great differences in the details.

He also confuses the term "vestigal." It really only means that it had a different function in the past, not that it is useless. That is key. For instance, some whales have a vestigal pelvis. It is used for the attachment of some minor muscles, but it is much too complex of a part to have been designed for such a simple task. Instead, it has lost its original function and yet remains in a new, reduced role.

If you want something that is useless, look at your own skin. Go outside tonight and watch the goosebumps pop up. This does you no good. But for your harrier ancestors, this was a means to prop up the hairs to provide additional warmth. It is also useful in dangerous situation to make the animal appear larger.

But in humans, it does not good. We do not have enough hair to get an benefit of warmth or increased size from the goose bump reflex. It is vestigal.

He then skim over some embryology items. He trys to make hay over the fact that the same body part may emerge from different segments in different organisms. Once again, he simplifies the subject too much, making a strawman. Such development is controlled by hox genes. Some code for the development of segments. It is others that code for the location of particular parts. For instance, there is a famil of genes called tinman that tells a wide variety of organisms where to make a heart. Not how, but where. These genes are separate from the body segment genes. There is an analagous family of genes that tell where to put limbs. So he has here knocked down a strawman.

He also trys to make some hay by claiming that the kidney devlopes from different tissues in fish and amphibians than in birds, reptiles and mammals. This is fallacious in that he is equating what are actually different organs and ignoring that birds, reptiles and mammals make and use the structure called a "kidney" in the fish before going on and making what they use as a kidney. It is hard for me to explain better, but here is an in depth description.

http://www.uoguelph.ca/zoology/devobio/210labs/meso3.html

If you read it, you should see that it can actually be considered further evidence for evolution becuase of ontogeny.

He then goes on to biochemical homologies. Again, he ignores the very details that would weaken his case. One example would be the silent mutations that have been mentioned before.

It was an interesting read, but again it was mainly built on attacking straman version of the evidence instead of the real evidence. It is easy to try and convince others that the simple kinds of comparisons which he assertes are the basis for the homology logic. And if things really were that simple, he might have a point. But they are not. They are much more complex and it is these details which undermine the argument he tries to make.

 

Yes it is.

Calling them transitional assumes evolution. What can be said is that fossils have been found that possess similarities and possibly a relationship with other animals.

Correct. What is found is the sudden explosion of diversity... like we would expect if all modern creatures are descended from a relative few created kinds that were suddenly exposed to radical environmental changes.

Only if you rely on evolution's method of phylogeny. If you understand that all of today's animals are literally descedants of earlier more complex, more adaptable creatures... these changes fit much more obviously.

 

From this article: "The targeting of DNA integration in retrovirus-infected cells is a central yet very poorly understood aspect of the biology of the virus."

IOW's, your assertion that I am wrong about how these common insertions might have occurred is based on a "very poorly understood aspect of the biology of the virus" and your assumption of evolution.

Which presents no problem at all to what I asserted.

Yes... that makes sense. And provides additional weight to my contention that an earlier, more pristine genome would be open to very rapid speciation and mutation.

Bingo!

This is exactly what I asserted and you disagreeed with. Two species sharing genetic commonalities requiring the survivors of a catystrophic virus to assimilate the virus in the same way can provide "local structural features" that result in common retroviral inserts.

Also, I thought of another weakness in your explanation. If these inserts are truly markers of common ancestory then it isn't good enough any more to say that chimps and humans evolved from the same species... which gives evolution more plausibility by numerical chance. They must have eventually descended from the exact same breeding pair. That also strips you of a key mechanical supposition... population spread which provides strength to natural selection.

Further, if these inserts were a sign of common ancestory followed by divergent evolution then they really shouldn't be the same. It is speculative at best to say that the one sequence containing an insert would have been the one not not to have been subject to the literally billions of evolutionary meaningful mutations necessary under the theory. IOW's, the fact that these inserts can be found and recognized is evidence against, not for, the idea that chimps and humans evolved from common ancestors.

Finally, in our discussion, we are talking about the chance that two completely separate species would randomly share retroviral inserts. That is not a one in billions chance as you have suggested. The insert only needs to be retained in one gene then be reproduced and eventually passed on.

However, the probability of an accummulation of beneficial mutations resulting in macroevolution does depend on strings of evolutionary events that together have a probability that is much worse than one in a billion. For natural selection to preserve such a mutation would either require that a marked advantage be realized or else that preservation was purely by chance until the accummulation of mutations did result in a survival advantage.

Both possibilities are unlikely. Few mutations are beneficial and even those that are very rarely give their host an advantage that results in their preference for reproduction. In fact, studies have concluded that forced mutations that are not terminal are absorbed back into the population without producing any shift in the species at all. The chance accummulation of mutations requires evolutionists to suspend natural selection as well as the observations of what happens to non-lethal mutations until natural selection catches up. Neither is impossible but also not likely.

 

" Yes it is.

Calling them transitional assumes evolution. What can be said is that fossils have been found that possess similarities and possibly a relationship with other animals."

All right. There are two layers here.

The first layer is that the assertion keeps being made that PE was postulated to explain a lack of differences. The counter to that has been to shown that PE is actually based on actual observed trends in the known transitionals.

Since Gould and company were setting out to explain observed trends in what they believe to be real transitional series, then it is not true to state that PE was proposed to explain a LACk of evidence.

The second layer is that you and others do not accept the proposed transitional series. THis is a completely different issue. Since GOuld thinks that they are legitimate, he is not trying to explain the lack of anything. THis does not preclude you from disagreeing with whether transitionals exist but is does preclude you from asserting that the basis of their theory is a lack of evidence.

" Correct. What is found is the sudden explosion of diversity... like we would expect if all modern creatures are descended from a relative few created kinds that were suddenly exposed to radical environmental changes."

Not sure what you are getting at.

The overall diversity of life on earth has waxed and waned many times, often corresponding to mass extinctions. For the particular transitional series you are seeing populations that are transforming into other populations. But for these macro changes, there was often really nothing sudden about it. The transition from land dwelling animals to extant whales was tens of millions of years. Lobe finned fish to amphibians was millions of years. Even to get to humans from our last common ancestor with chimps is several million years and there is hardly any difference between the two.

" Only if you rely on evolution's method of phylogeny. If you understand that all of today's animals are literally descedants of earlier more complex, more adaptable creatures... these changes fit much more obviously."

Trilobites were more complex that tigers? A sponge is more complex than a fish? Huh?

No, if that were the case we should see that all the various "kinds" were contemporary with one another. This we do not observe. Instead we observe that most of life is found in a very specific slice of time. So much so that you can even date rocks reasonably accurately based on what fossils they contain.

 

No. They simply aren't descendents of the same kind. A sponge is more complex than a fish? Huh?

That is also speculative. The model geologic column as proposed by evolutionists does not exist anywhere in nature. Further, fossils of late equines aren't found immediately on top of supposed ancestors. Finally, much of the speculation of how old a fossil is comes full circle to where evolutionists decide to place it in the tree. If the fossil isn't found in the right layer or place then it is presumed to have migrated to where it was found.

Nothing in the observed fossil record precludes most species from having been contemporaries. They may not have been but that cannot be concluded from the fossil record.

And this is well documented circular reasoning. "The rocks are old. How do you know? Because of the fossils they contain. How do you know how old the fossils are? Because they are found in old rocks."

But what happens when fossils don't appear where they should? They are called anomalies and disregarded.

The only constants in evolution are the presupposition of naturalism and the presumption of evolution. All else can be discarded to preserve these "truths".

 

This is a theme that seems to be coming up lately amoung anti-science creationists. The idea that in the beginning there were creatures with the special capapability of having descendants split off into various species but staying within the same kind, this being a function of having complex DNA that today is simplified by a process of subtraction only, never addition, it being an article of faith that no beneficial mutation is possible.

This is typically tied to a view of the earth as being only 6000 to 10000 years old.

Well, animal and human DNA from the time of the ancient egyptians, then, should show us DNA that has more information in it than current DNA for the same species. It should be a matter of highest priority for creationist scientists to test the DNA for these ancient animals and demonstrate the extra information they had in their DNA at that time compared to DNA for animals today.

I will confidently predict that analysis of ancient Egyptian cat DNA or human DNA will show no difference in the amount of information in the genome between then and now. The chromosones will be the same in number, the number of genes will be very close, and the amount of junk DNA will be about the same.

This based on the known glacial pace of evolution. Its too recent for very much change to have occurred of that sort.

The above referenced theory, however, should show a substantial amount of extra information present, in quantity alone. That means more DNA, that means places where current DNA is junk on the chromosone showing valid genetic instructions.

Does anybody seriously believe that such would be found when it is checked? It is only a matter of time before animal and human DNA from that period is analyzed, if it hasn't already happened.

Yes it does.

LOL! The age of fossils is not based on "speculation", it is measured by objective means, usually by dating layers both above and below it radiometrically. And Geologisits do admit there are such things as erosions followed by landslides that can put things out of order, and there are ways to tell when that happened, and so what?

Well, for example, no dinosaur is ever reliably dated as being younger than 65 million years and no human is ever reliably dated as being older than a million years or so and that, in my mind, kind of beats out the idea of "nothing".

What you REALLY mean is "NOTHING I ACCEPT AS REAL", which is not the same thing. Your willingness to ignore evidence in your quest to understand reality is deplorable.

Another false accusation. It is true that before the arrival of radioactive dating the geological ages had already been discovered and named and put in order based on the fossils they contained. It was not a subjective thing, it was a simple matter of noting what fossils were overlapping between epochs and how that constrained what order they could be logically placed in to account for that.

Strangely, radioactive age measurements confirmed the relative dating order that had already been established, and allowed absolute ages to be assigned to the layers. How do you explain that funny coincidence?

So you don't believe in eroded canyons with occasional landslides, huh? Sorry, these things do exist.

The restriction to naturalistic means of explanation is the hallmark of science. I'm sorry that what we have been able to find out that way is hard on your theology, but that is not the fault of those of us willing to take that route. God's truth will be consistent where it is sought and found, but our theories about what His truth is are always subject to being updated by new information. Evolution theory has, we believe, become firmly established by the evidence, and like the theory of Gravitation, it will now be presumed to be in effect until a better theory takes it place. That is the way of science.

 

" No. They simply aren't descendents of the same kind."

Then what do you mean by "all of today's animals are literally descedants of earlier more complex, more adaptable creatures"?

Where can we observe that fossils in the past were more complex than what we have today? How do you quantifiably measure said complexity?

" That is also speculative. The model geologic column as proposed by evolutionists does not exist anywhere in nature."

Nope. There are at least 32 places in the world where the entire column is found in one locale.

The Ghadames Basin in Libya
The Beni Mellal Basin in Morocco
The Essaouira Basin in Morocco(Broughton and Trepanier, 1993)
The Tunisian Basin in Tunisia
The Oman Interior Basin in Oman
The Western Desert Basin in Egypt
The Adana Basin in Turkey
The Iskenderun Basin in Turkey
The Moesian Platform in Bulgaria
The Carpathian Basin in Poland
The Baltic Basin in the USSR
The Yeniseiy-Khatanga Basin in the USSR
The Farah Basin in Afghanistan
The Helmand Basin in Afghanistan
The Yazd-Kerman-Tabas Basin in Iran
The Manhai-Subei Basin in China
The Jiuxi Basin China
The Tung t'in - Yuan Shui Basin China
The Tarim Basin China
The Szechwan Basin China
The Yukon-Porcupine Province Alaska
The Williston Basin in North Dakota (Haimla et al, 1990, p. 517)
The Tampico Embayment Mexico
The Bogata Basin Colombia
The Bonaparte Basin, Australia (above this basin sources are Roberston Group, 1989)
The Beaufort Sea Basin/McKenzie River Delta(Trendall 1990)
The Parana Basin North, Paraguay and Brazil( (Wiens, 1995, p. 192)
The Cape Karroo Basin (Tankard, 1995, p. 21)
The Argentina Precordillera Basin (Franca et al, 1995, p. 136)
The Chilean Antofagosta Basin (Franca et al, 1995, p. 134)
The Pricaspian Basin (Volozh et al, 2003)
Golden Valley formation, North Dakota