The First Principles of Created Kinds

[AJRoberts (Molecular Biologist/Virologist)]

@T_aquaticus

For creationism, there is no expectation of a nested hierarchy and therefore no gaps.

No, there are gaps and forms of nested hierarchies in creationist models as well. The gaps occur between created kinds and the nested hierarchies exist within created kinds due to adaptation, diversification and speciation.

@T_aquaticus

You are just as likely to find fossils with a mixture of mammal and bird features as you are a fossil with a mixture of mammal and reptile features.

This is an unsupported inference. Creationists (or evolutionists critiquing creationists) cannot make any predictions about which “mixtures” (using your word) of phenotypic traits are more likely between different created kinds. I don’t know any that do or have made any of these kinds of predictions or inferences. It seems ludicrous to try to guess what these might have been.

@T_aquaticus

I also don’t see how you can look at a fossil and determine that it had no ancestors.

I don’t see how anyone can do this either.

@T_aquaticus

how can someone determine that our fossil collections contain a specimen from every species that has lived?

I agree with you, these are inferences and predictions that are not supported by observations and need not be true.

@T_aquaticus

The fact that we know where the gaps in the fossil record are is because of evolution.

This seems like an absurd assertion. We know where the gaps are because of observations - observations free of any interpretive paradigm.