MrDarwin

Actually, a couple of questions before I write Ed off entirely:

Ed, do you believe it is possible for scientists to discover anything about the ancient past with any measure of certainty? Do you believe that scientists--and here I specifically mean geologists and paleontologists--have discovered anything about the past with any measure of certainty? If so, what? And if not, why not?

MrDarwin

*bump*

Ed

Yes, I think they have done an excellent job of classifying all the fossilized organisms of the past, the problems come when they try to create some ancestral lineage.

MrDarwin

Ed, I think you realize there's more to it than that. For one thing, geologists don't generally classify fossils; they leave that to the paleontologists. But geologists and paleontologists have both come to several conclusions based on the geologic and fossil records:

1. rocks have been forming for a very, very long time;

2. some of those rocks are older than others;

3. some of those rocks retain a record of creatures that were alive at the time;

4. they are able to conclude in what order those rocks were formed, and thus the creatures therein the order in which they lived; and

5. these fossils show that completely different creatures have been alive on the earth at completely different times.

Note, by the way, that none of the above says anything about evolution.

So, Ed, which of the above conclusions do you take issue with? Are you suggesting that geologists and paleontologists are completely incompetent in their own field? Finally, why should we think you know their field better than they do?