You're not being offensive, you're being unresponsive. I tell you that none of your so called evidence even looks like evidence except from within an evolutionary mindset and your response is essentially to present me with more of what you think is evidence and to make the assertion that "evidence indicates evolution". No, it doesn't.
It's the same sort of evidence by which scientists predicted transitional forms between dinosaurs and birds, the evolution of antibiotic resistance, the microwave background from the big bang, and so on. The reason scientists use this kind of thing is quite simple. It works. It allows us to discover more things about the world.
You state that apomorphic characteristics are all you've got to go on with fossils
No. I said we can't analyze the genetics of those fossils. However, we do have a huge amount of additional evidence from them. For example, oxygen isotope ratios let us know which of the early whales were fresh water and which were marine. The presence or absence of Haversian canals in fossilized bones can tell us how active the organism was. The presence of certain organic molecules in some fossils can tell us about the color of the organism. In one case, the existence of traces of heme in T. rex bone confirmed the prediction of Thomas Huxley over a hundred years ago (using apomorphic characters as evidence) that dinosaurs are most closely related to birds, more than to other reptiles. This is powerful evidence itself that the scientific method does work.
and ignore the possibility that this isn't nearly enough information to make the claims you're making. If all you had was apomorphic data, you'd think a dolphin was some sort of transitional form between sharks and something else (horses, I presume).
No. This goes back to the difference between homology and analogy. Dolphin skeletons clearly show them to be homlologous with those of other mammals. They are only analogous to sharks.
And you completely miss the point about fish vs mammal, I think probably on purpose.
The point is that being warm-blooded is not a good distinguishing characteristic between fish and mammals, since some fish are warm-blooded. It might seem like a piddling detail to some, but it matters when you want to get thing right.
It may not be your fault really because the point I'm making impacts the issue at the paradigm level. Nothing you've said is one whit more valid to my ears than the arguments Flat Earthers make or Ancient Alien Theorists make. It's all equally delusional.
I think that's perceptive. The sort of evidence I've mentioned lets us make testable predictions, and more often than not, those predictions are validated later. So scientists are pretty much unwilling to hear any claim that it's not valid to use. It's all we have.
Likewise, creationists are locked into their particular take on the world, (and there are lots of different kinds of creationism) because what scientists do to learn about the world leads to things they don't want to see.
Even the cherry picked data that evolutionists claim as evidence only looks like evidence from within the evolutionary mind set. The strongest proof of this is their universal rejection of any argument related to irreducible complexity, which they reject on a conceptual level.
Irreducible complexity is fairly common in the world. But it evolves. Even Behe now admits that it could evolve; he just thinks that it doesn't or possibly that such evolution is rare. But he has no evidence to support that idea.
Irreducible complexity happens when a system has several parts, each of which would inactivate the system if it was absent. For example, a regulated enzyme system requires the enzyme, the substrate on which it acts, and the regulator to be present in order to work. It's irreducibly complex because the removal of any part of the system will destroy its function.
Yet this was observed to evolve in bacteria. A series of slight successive variations led first to the enzyme, and then to the regulator.
As a result, the most foundational premises upon which evolution is based, that of "slight successive variations" leading to different forms, is so plastic as to be meaningless. Evolutionists accept what would be quantum leaps from one creature to another as the new "slight successive variations" that Darwin looked for.
The fossil record shows, for example, that vertebrate legs evolved by a series of slight modifications.
Darwin, however, knew and stated plainly that any complex system that could not possibly be formed via "slight successive variations" (i.e. irreducible complexity) would falsify his theory.
He did say that anything that didn't form by changes that were favorable to the organism would invalidate his theory. He and Huxley disagreed on the idea of sudden changes, Huxley pointing out that nothing in Darwin's theory said that it couldn't happen.
A religion that is entrenched in academia and the scientific community to the point that to professionally question it is to end your career.
The man who is the author of the notion of irreducible complexity continued to hold his position as a professor of biochemistry, for example.
Alan Feduccia, who denies the evolution of birds from dinosaurs, is still employed and a highly regarded ornithologist.
Stephen Gould, whose theory of punctuated equilibrium challenged Darwinian theory and eventually modified it, was a highly regarded professor and didn't worry about his job.
Likewise Kimura, Morgan, et cetera. The theory is always being challenged, and every now and then, someone shows that the theory needs correction in a way that convinces most biologists and so it is. (there's no "decider" in science; it's just the consensus that makes theory accepted)
You're probably right in saying that the paradigm gap between biology and creationism is so great as to make them almost incomprehensible to each other.
I was hoping that perhaps the common ground might be that many creationists accept the idea of limited evolution within a "kind." Perhaps we could look at that, if you accept that idea. If not, I think we're at an impasse.
But again, I thank you for your honesty and willingness to listen.
