![\"crocoduck\"](\"http:\/\/www.theness.com\/neurologicablog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/11\/crocoduck.jpg\" "\\"crocoduck\\"")
Just a short post today, as it is Thanksgiving for those of us in the US, and my day will be spent with family and way too much food.<\/p>\nJust a short post today, as it is Thanksgiving for those of us in the US, and my day will be spent with family and way too much food.<\/p>\n
Many of you may remember the idiotic duo of mindless creationism (IDMC) – Ray Comfort and Kirk Cameron. One of Cameron’s shining intellectual moments was when he presented his impression of a transitional species – the crocoduck. This is a favorite strategy of creationists – grossly misinterpret evolutionary theory, and then argue that because you are ignorant of how evolution is supposed to work, it must be false.<\/p>\n
In this case Cameron presents and example (the crocoduck) of what many creationists think of as a transitional species, an impossible hybrid monster. They must think that evolutionists believe that in order for a duck to evolve, first a crocodile evolves a duck body, while retaining its crocodile head, and then the head eventually evolves into a duck head. And since we have never found a crocoduck – evolution must be false.<\/p>\n
Even for those creationists who have not taken this classic canard to such absurd height, there is still the frequent claim that transitional fossils are missing from the fossil record – because they envision transitional species to be half-formed, in the process of morphing from one working form to another. This is at odds with evolutionary theory (which any creationist can learn by cracking a single legitimate science book on evolution) – which states that populations change over time with mostly gradual morphological changes, but each step of the way each individual is perfectly functional. Structures work every step of the way.<\/p>\n