Should evolution be taught in schools?

[BeardofPants]

Originally posted by Lief Erikson
I know that there are some, like the Neanderthals. But when such discoveries do come, up, they are generally major discoveries. We have the evidence of many Neanderthals having existed at one time now, but we don't have a constant, slightly evolving chain of species. This is easily explained by a faster evolution, for by that theory a species would hop from one stage of development to another within a rather small space of time, and doesn't even need hundreds of in between species.

First of all, Neandertals are NOT the precursor to Sapiens. They were a side branch that developed in Europe when Sapiens were still in the African/Middle East region. The precursor to Neanders is most likely Homo sapiens heidelbergensis, and possibly antecessor in Spain. Erectus is our direct precendent.

And that is why you are wrong about there being no slightly evolving chain. There are many slight differrences between heidelbergensis and the neandertal. So much so, that it is now generally a given that they were two separate species, as opposed to what they previously thought - that heidelbergensis was Neander.

I'm not even gonna get into the timeframe here, but needless to say, a long period of time stretched between Heidelbergensis and Neander (who were developing before sapiens expanded out) and the expansion of Sapiens. On top of all this, there is a convergence between Erectus, Sapiens, and Heidelbergensis, of several thousands of years. Your faster evolution theory is simply not possible.

Originally posted by Lief Erikson
I'm personally a little surprised that you consider our current dating methods to be just as accurate as the fact that the world is round, but it's your choice how strong you think these methods are.

I didn't even mention dating methods there. (See my post below regarding precision vs accuracy) Here, I was talking about the fossil record, and stratigraphic layers. Just by using geomagnetic reversals tells us that the earth is very very old.