Apparently, archaeopteryx has been restored as “first bird” again. Maybe.

_{Denyse O'Leary

October 29, 2011

Evolution, News}

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“Archaeopteryx lost its exalted place in bird evolution,” says Lee.

But, this new evolutionary tree presented a problem because it placed archaeopteryx in a group of dinosaurs that either didn’t fly at all or glided in a way that was not bird-like.

Lee says, it meant that bird flight most probably evolved more than once and archaeopteryx possibly evolved flight independently of birds in a case of what’s called “convergent evolution”.

As far as evolutionary theory goes, such scenarios are not particularly elegant. So Lee carried out a new analysis of the data to see what he could find.

He found a way to jam it in, to be Darwinian, not convergent. If anyone believes it.

Comments

Scott What you are doing is taking each leg in turn and saying it is not sufficient. It is the presence of all three legs that makes the story compelling. The fossil record tells us about macro level change. Current genetics and development tells us how organisms change. Cladistics tells us how similar genetic changes might account for the macro level change we see in the fossil record. Of course there is a lot of uncertainty and hypotheses are continually changing in the light of new data. But they are hypotheses and they are consistent with processes we see round about us right now. Meanwhile ID has zero hypotheses about how this change happened and actually rules itself out from producing such hypotheses.markf_{October 31, 2011
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ScottAndrews2
I appreciate that, because I’ve had some real jackass moments, and I’ve tried hard not to repeat that mistake. I don’t know who any of you are, but you are people, not objects for me to blow off steam at. (Although I’m not above disrespecting someone who really begs for it.)
Same here. I have nothing personal against you or any of the Intelligent Design Creationists posting here. But you have to expect when you keep posting nonsense about topics you obviously haven't studied and don't understand, you're going to get called on it.
Take archeeopteryx, and other apparent fossil transitions. Of course there is evidence of genetic change. Otherwise every fossil would be the same! Why would anyone deny that?
Why indeed? Maybe you better talk to many of the other ID supporters here who say it's impossible.
First, that change is not incremental. No one can say that there was a single genetic change, then another, then another, and back it up with fossil evidence.
Not knowing the exact number of genetic changes doesn't magically erase the evidence that such genetic changes did happen.
Second, whatever the genetic changes were, no one even knows what they were.
That is false and you know it. I just provided you with multiple examples where the specific genetic changes are known. What's the word for someone who posts a statement they know is false?
Third, it is unknowable whether selection, drift, both, or neither played roles, and what they might have been.
Again, not knowing the specific ratio for each part of the process doesn't alter one bit the huge amount of evidence that the process actually occurred.
From the above examples it be reasonably said that no significant evolutionary changes have ever been explained in terms of evolutionary mechanisms. Not one.
Another blatant denial of reality that would be funny if it weren't so sad. How about insular dwarfism, where known evolutionary mechanisms cause a population isolated in a small geographic area (typically an island) to become reduced in size? The phenomena has been studied extensively and empirically observed numerous times.
Why should we settle upon that as an explanation, even a provisional one
Because it explains in considerable detail the empirical observations we make and provides proven predictive power. If you have something that does those jobs better, let's hear it.GinoB_{October 30, 2011
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Mark, I appreciate that, because I've had some real jackass moments, and I've tried hard not to repeat that mistake. I don't know who any of you are, but you are people, not objects for me to blow off steam at. (Although I'm not above disrespecting someone who really begs for it.) That being said, here's my point. Here's what is missing. Evolution (Darwinism - whichever - you know) posits genetic variation which is then accumulated by selection, drift, etc. The trouble is that the evidence is always like stool with only one or two legs. Take archeeopteryx, and other apparent fossil transitions. Of course there is evidence of genetic change. Otherwise every fossil would be the same! Why would anyone deny that? First, that change is not incremental. No one can say that there was a single genetic change, then another, then another, and back it up with fossil evidence. Second, whatever the genetic changes were, no one even knows what they were. Third, it is unknowable whether selection, drift, both, or neither played roles, and what they might have been. Therefore it may be surmised that a series of fossils were caused by such evolutionary processes, but they cannot be evidence of it. There's only one leg of the stool, change. The other legs are missing. They are the transitions that evolution attempts to explain, not the evidence of it. Next, analogies with observed current genetic change. Now you may find every evolutionary mechanism at work. But now something else is missing - the degree of change. If the hypothesis is that such mechanisms can produce changes large enough to account for biological diversity, that leg is missing. We can attribute to those mechanisms what they are known to do. It's not that we are unwilling to make an extrapolation. But there are too many issues to warrant or allow it. We must limit the change from those mechanisms to what we observe. Then we have cladystics and phylogenetic trees. Like fossils, these may fit with an evolutionary narrative, but all of the specifics are missing. If they do in fact indicate descent, they cannot be attributed to any particular genetic changes, selection, drift, etc. That leaves you with a lot of "evidence," and sometimes you may think that we don't see it or prefer to ignore it. Neither is the case. We see the evidence. But it never comes together to support the claim. In every case some aspect of evolution must be assumed. There are no instances, zero, in which any significant diversification can be attributed to the proposed mechanisms of evolution. (Every time I say 'significant diversification' or the like I realize that it is subjective and leaves room for open-ended disagreement. It would be great it both sides agreed to define this.) There are other issues within those areas of evidence. But that is secondary. From the above examples it be reasonably said that no significant evolutionary changes have ever been explained in terms of evolutionary mechanisms. Not one. Why should we settle upon that as an explanation, even a provisional one?ScottAndrews2_{October 30, 2011
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Well by golly Gino, you really are a super genius, you falsified non-local quantum entanglement in molecular biology by merely Ad hominem attack instead of any actual experimental support. That sure saves a lot of time and expensive lab work! Sheer genius on your part my man :)bornagain77_{October 30, 2011
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BA77: "bornagain77October 30, 2011 at 10:53 am
Now Gino seeing as you are so much smarter than us ‘creationists’, (though many here on UD take extreme exception to that particular label), and seeing as you have seemingly put almighty God out of a job for explaining why life exists on earth,
"We're not Creationists, we just believe Almighty God created all life on Earth" ...and you wonder why no one takes you seriously.GinoB_{October 30, 2011
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Gino, you state:
Creationist when faced with his own scientific impotence resorts to classic Creationist denials!
Now Gino seeing as you are so much smarter than us 'creationists', (though many here on UD take extreme exception to that particular label), and seeing as you have seemingly put almighty God out of a job for explaining why life exists on earth, I was hoping you could help poor ole dumb me with a few questions I have about your atheistic neo-Darwinian model. First, could you please, scientifically, prove to me that materialism, upon which neo-Darwinism is built, is the true description for the foundation of reality??? And second, could you please explain, to poor ole dumb me, how 'non-local', beyond space and time, quantum information came to reside in molecular biology on a massive scale by the 'local', within space and time, material processes of neo-Darwinism??? I think you may have to do something like falsify non-local quantum entanglement that has been extensively corroborated by numerous independent labs, but seeing how smart you think you are, you should be able to whip this falsification out by supper time!!!
Falsification Of Neo-Darwinism by Quantum Entanglement/Information https://docs.google.com/document/d/1p8AQgqFqiRQwyaF8t1_CKTPQ9duN8FHU9-pV4oBDOVs/edit?hl=en_US Does Quantum Biology Support A Quantum Soul? – Stuart Hameroff - video (notes in description) http://vimeo.com/29895068 Ions have been teleported successfully for the first time by two independent research groups Excerpt: In fact, copying isn't quite the right word for it. In order to reproduce the quantum state of one atom in a second atom, the original has to be destroyed. This is unavoidable - it is enforced by the laws of quantum mechanics, which stipulate that you can't 'clone' a quantum state. In principle, however, the 'copy' can be indistinguishable from the original (that was destroyed),,, http://www.rsc.org/chemistryworld/Issues/2004/October/beammeup.asp Atom takes a quantum leap - 2009 Excerpt: Ytterbium ions have been 'teleported' over a distance of a metre.,,, "What you're moving is information, not the actual atoms," says Chris Monroe, from the Joint Quantum Institute at the University of Maryland in College Park and an author of the paper. But as two particles of the same type differ only in their quantum states, the transfer of quantum information is equivalent to moving the first particle to the location of the second. http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/2171769/posts
bornagain77_{October 30, 2011
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Scott - perhaps you could take a look at my comment 12 below. Markmarkf_{October 30, 2011
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ScottAndrews2
I’ll leave it for any onlookers who wish to judge. At 4.1, with archaeopteryx as the context, I challenged you to explain how the fossil record provides a history of individual genetic changes.
The fossil record record provides a history of the *results* of individual genetic changes, just as I said. I provided several examples. If you think we can do direct genetic testing of fossilized material itself you put yourself in an ignorance category with Joseph.
You responded with genetic differences between extant species, which are obviously genetically different. You don’t need a research paper to tell you that.
No, I didn't. I provided genetic evidence for the cause of the changes observed in the fossil record. Are you really so slow you don't understand the difference?
Having dodged that and all of my questions, apparently unable to answer them, you proceed to spike the ball and do an end-zone dance and talk some lame trollish smack
You mean I answered your questions and now you don't know what to do, so you fall back on the typical Creations whining and excuses. For a guy writing on a blog that's supposed to be about ID, you sure are hesitant to post any ID information on the provided data.GinoB_{October 30, 2011
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Double LOL! Creationist when faced with his own scientific impotence resorts to classic Creationist denials! - try to rewrite history - ignore scientific evidence that answers his questions. - declare victory while running for the door. Feel free to explain the data in those papers anytime Scott. Feel free to answer the question you keep running from: What good is an ‘explanation’ like ID that doesn’t explain? GinoB_{October 30, 2011
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GinoB, I'll leave it for any onlookers who wish to judge. At 4.1, with archaeopteryx as the context, I challenged you to explain how the fossil record provides a history of individual genetic changes. You responded with genetic differences between extant species, which are obviously genetically different. You don't need a research paper to tell you that. Having dodged that and all of my questions, apparently unable to answer them, you proceed to spike the ball and do an end-zone dance and talk some lame trollish smack. If I respond at all it's to allow all to watch you parade your impotence.ScottAndrews2_{October 30, 2011
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ScottAndrews2
My own fault for not stopping when I recognized that you were troll.
LOL! Funny how you Creationists always whine that anyone who points out your scientific ignorance and asks you questions you can't answer must be a 'troll'. Feel free to explain the data in those papers anytime Scott. Feel free to answer the question you keep running from: What good is an ‘explanation’ like ID that doesn’t explain? GinoB_{October 30, 2011
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GinoB, My own fault for not stopping when I recognized that you were troll.ScottAndrews2_{October 30, 2011
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Of related note:
Secrets of flocking revealed - October 26, 2011 Excerpt: Hemelrijk has studied schools of fish and flocks of starlings -- birds that can gather in flocks as large as 30,000 individuals.,,,"Each day they flap around for 30 minutes in the evening before sleep, and it's just spectacular the way they do this," Hemelrijk said.,,, "Initially in [the] 1930s, people thought it might be telepathy that guided flocks of birds. Now we know self-organization is at the heart," said Charlotte Hemelrijk of the University of Groningen in the Netherlands.,,, http://www.physorg.com/news/2011-10-secrets-flocking-revealed.html
Perhaps Hemelrijk feels she has explained swarming Starlings with her computer model, and with her paper thin evolutionary excuses as to why they do it, but something tells me she has not come anywhere near explaining the beauty inherent in Swarming Starlings,,,
starlings flocking - video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eakKfY5aHmY
,,,nor has Hemelrijk, despite how impressed she may be with her computer model, come anywhere near completely ruling out that the Starlings may actually be communicating 'telepathically'. In fact there is now direct experimental evidence that 'non-local' (beyond space and time) quantum effects play a foundational role in bird navigation, thus, if anything, completely opening up a plausible 'telepathic' cause;
Quantum compass for birds - January 2011 Excerpt: In the new research, physicists at the University of Oxford and the National University of Singapore calculated that quantum entanglement in a bird’s eye could last more than 100 microseconds — longer than the 80 microseconds achieved in physicists’ experiments at temperatures just above absolute zero,,, The new prediction interprets data from earlier experiments that hinted at a quantum basis for magnetic navigation in migrating birds. In 2006, researchers in Frankfurt, Germany, netted 12 European robins migrating from Scandinavia. Researchers locked the robins in a wooden room and applied small magnetic fields tuned to a frequency that would disturb entangled electrons, if the birds indeed relied on entanglement to navigate. The magnetic field, at 150 nanoTesla, was about 300 times weaker than Earth’s magnetic field, so it wouldn’t be expected to confuse the birds in the absence of an entanglement-based navigation system. But with the magnetic field on, the birds flew randomly instead of all flying in the same direction. http://www.sciencenews.org/view/generic/id/68484/title/Quantum_compass_for_birds
Poem, Music & Verse
Walt Whitman (1819–1892). Leaves of Grass. - When I heard the Learn’d Astronomer WHEN I heard the learn’d astronomer; When the proofs, the figures, were ranged in columns before me; When I was shown the charts and the diagrams, to add, divide, and measure them; When I, sitting, heard the astronomer, where he lectured with much applause in the lecture-room, How soon, unaccountable, I became tired and sick; Till rising and gliding out, I wander’d off by myself, In the mystical moist night-air, and from time to time, Look’d up in perfect silence at the stars. http://www.bartleby.com/142/180.html Jessie Colter - His Eye Is On The Sparrow - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Jvkqtnq6Q8 Matthew 10:31 "So do not fear; you are more valuable than many sparrows."
bornagain77_{October 30, 2011
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ScottAndrews2
You are dodging the question. Did you think I wouldn’t notice? You said the fossil record contains a history of genetic changes. I asked you for a few of the genetic changes recorded in that history.
LOL! No you didn't ask for that. You asked for genetic changes responsible for the results documented in the fossil record, and that's exactly what you got. Probably surprised the heck out of you when I was able to come up with some good examples so easily. See, that's what happens when you argue from ignorance. You get slapped up side the head with actual scientific evidence. Then you bluster and wave your hands and make every excuse imaginable as to why the evidence doesn't count, just as you're doing now. Speaking of avoiding questions, I'll ask you for the third time: What good is an ‘explanation’ like ID that doesn’t explain? Feel free to give your explanation for the data in the multiple papers I've provided anytime, not that I expect you to read them.
That last part is beside the point. You made a claim, I called BS, and you responded with information unrelated to that claim and tried to get away with it. If you’re not even going to try than withdraw the claim or I’ll stop wasting my time with you.
Running away from scientific evidence you can't explain is a time-honored Creationist tradition. Wouldn't surprise me in the least if you whined and fled.GinoB_{October 30, 2011
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GinoBo, You are dodging the question. Did you think I wouldn't notice? You said the fossil record contains a history of genetic changes. I asked you for a few of the genetic changes recorded in that history. In turn you responded with identified differences between living organisms. My claim of BS still stands, with an extra pile added because you tried to get away with non-answer. Besides, is it news that rodents are genetically different from bats? Really? (Did you think I hadn't already read that paper?) There's the question-begging again. You point out the obvious, that they are different, then attempt to slide in darwinism as the explanation. Is the difference between rodents and bats, or even between rodent forelimbs and bat wings a single mutation? Why was it selected? Because it took off and started flying? More likely a number of mutations? What were they, and why was each selected? Answer that and you'll have the beginnings of an evolutionary explanation rather than a useless post-hoc narrative tacked on to what is plainly observable. That last part is beside the point. You made a claim, I called BS, and you responded with information unrelated to that claim and tried to get away with it. If you're not even going to try than withdraw the claim or I'll stop wasting my time with you.ScottAndrews2_{October 30, 2011
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GinoB, You whine like a little baby when I say "There isn't any evidence", yet that is all YOU and your ilk do with respect to Intelligent design! IOW you are an intellectual coward and a loser.Joseph_{October 30, 2011
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Joseph
YOU need some positive evidence to support your nonsensical claims.
Yeah Joseph, we know: THAR AIN’T NO DARN EVIDENCE!!! The UD owners must just love the intellectually challenged image you project for ID.GinoB_{October 30, 2011
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GinoB, YOU need some positive evidence to support your nonsensical claims. As for your alleged “experts” they don’t even know what makes a whale a whale, nor a bird a bird. And if you don’t know that then you cannot say that they can evolve from something non-whale or non-bird
Species are identified as either whales or birds by an agreed upon set of morphological traits.
LoL!!! Having certain traits does not tell us what makes a whale a whale nor a bird a bird. "Bird" is not a trait, neither is "whale". IOW thanks for once again proving your ignorance.Joseph_{October 30, 2011
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Joseph
There aren’t any observed mechanisms that can “evolve” a land mammal into a whale.
We all know the distinctive wail of the Joseph by now: THAR AIN'T NO DARN EVINENCE!!! Or TINAE!! as Dr. Liddle observed. You need to get a new writer.
As for your alleged “experts” they don’t even know what makes a whale a whale, nor a bird a bird. And if you don’t know that then you cannot say that they can evolve from something non-whale or non-bird
Species are identified as either whales or birds by an agreed upon set of morphological traits. And we can indeed follow the fossil evidence back in time and see a juxtaposition of such traits between different lineages, as is the case of archy having a mix of traits between theropod dinosaurs and modern birds.GinoB_{October 30, 2011
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GinoB, Perhaps YOU could stop acting like a gullible fool and actually present some science. You don't even know what makes a whale a whale- IOW only your ignorance sez whales "evolved" from land mammals. All you have is circumstantial evidence that can be used for alternative scenarios- circumstantial evidence is nothing more than "If I didn't believe it I wouldn't have seen it"- IOW prejudice is what can be read in those papers.Joseph_{October 30, 2011
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Joseph, you could stop acting like a petulant child for once and give us your explanation for the data in the papers. But you won't.GinoB_{October 30, 2011
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markf, There aren't any observed mechanisms that can "evolve" a land mammal into a whale. As for your alleged "experts" they don't even know what makes a whale a whale, nor a bird a bird. And if you don't know that then you cannot say that they can evolve from something non-whale or non-bird.Joseph_{October 30, 2011
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GinoB, Your "evidence" amounts to "If I didn't believe it I wouldn't have seen it." Ya see there still isn't any way to test the claim that common ancestry is the only explanation of the data. So just because evotards are gullible doesn't mean the rest of have to be.Joseph_{October 30, 2011
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markf you state:
It doesn’t even begin to try to explain what happened. All it can do is pick holes in other explanations.
This statement of yours is simply false, as is clearly illustrated by Dr. Michael Behe's latest paper:
“The First Rule of Adaptive Evolution”: Break or blunt any functional coded element whose loss would yield a net fitness gain - Michael Behe - December 2010 Excerpt: In its most recent issue The Quarterly Review of Biology has published a review by myself of laboratory evolution experiments of microbes going back four decades.,,, The gist of the paper is that so far the overwhelming number of adaptive (that is, helpful) mutations seen in laboratory evolution experiments are either loss or modification of function. Of course we had already known that the great majority of mutations that have a visible effect on an organism are deleterious. Now, surprisingly, it seems that even the great majority of helpful mutations degrade the genome to a greater or lesser extent.,,, I dub it “The First Rule of Adaptive Evolution”: Break or blunt any functional coded element whose loss would yield a net fitness gain.(that is a net 'fitness gain' within a 'stressed' environment i.e. remove the stress from the environment and the parent strain is always more 'fit') http://behe.uncommondescent.com/2010/12/the-first-rule-of-adaptive-evolution/
Which explains the extreme constraint we witness for variability:
Scant search for the Maker Excerpt: But where is the experimental evidence? None exists in the literature claiming that one species has been shown to evolve into another. Bacteria, the simplest form of independent life, are ideal for this kind of study, with generation times of 20 to 30 minutes, and populations achieved after 18 hours. But throughout 150 years of the science of bacteriology, there is no evidence that one species of bacteria has changed into another, in spite of the fact that populations have been exposed to potent chemical and physical mutagens and that, uniquely, bacteria possess extrachromosomal, transmissible plasmids. Since there is no evidence for species changes between the simplest forms of unicellular life, it is not surprising that there is no evidence for evolution from prokaryotic to eukaryotic cells, let alone throughout the whole array of higher multicellular organisms. - Alan H. Linton - emeritus professor of bacteriology, University of Bristol. http://www.timeshighereducation.co.uk/story.asp?storycode=159282 materialists never mention the fact that the variations found in nature (such as peppered moth color and finch beak size) which are often touted as solid proof of evolution are always found to be cyclical in nature. i.e. The variations are found to vary around a median position with never a continual deviation from the norm. This blatant distortion/omission of evidence led Phillip Johnson to comment in the Wall Street Journal: "When our leading scientists have to resort to the sort of distortion that would land a stock promoter in jail, you know they are in trouble."
Which agrees with Dr. John Sanford's work in Genetic Entropy;
Evolution Vs Genetic Entropy - Andy McIntosh - video http://www.metacafe.com/watch/4028086 Using Computer Simulation to Understand Mutation Accumulation Dynamics and Genetic Load: Excerpt: We apply a biologically realistic forward-time population genetics program to study human mutation accumulation under a wide-range of circumstances.,, Our numerical simulations consistently show that deleterious mutations accumulate linearly across a large portion of the relevant parameter space. http://bioinformatics.cau.edu.cn/lecture/chinaproof.pdf
Which agrees with Dr. David Abel's null hypothesis:
The Law of Physicodynamic Insufficiency - Dr David L. Abel - November 2010 Excerpt: “If decision-node programming selections are made randomly or by law rather than with purposeful intent, no non-trivial (sophisticated) function will spontaneously arise.”,,, After ten years of continual republication of the null hypothesis with appeals for falsification, no falsification has been provided. The time has come to extend this null hypothesis into a formal scientific prediction: “No non trivial algorithmic/computational utility will ever arise from chance and/or necessity alone.” http://www-qa.scitopics.com/The_Law_of_Physicodynamic_Insufficiency.html
Which agrees with the pattern seen in the fossil record:
The Truth About Evolution - Transitional Fossils Excerpt: Major adaptive radiations provide a formidable challenge to biological evolution.,,, Major adaptive radiations of groups of vertebrates are: a) Placoderms in the early Devonian. Because they were heavily armored, jawed fish, intermediates and ancestral forms should have fossilized but none are found. No placoderms exist today. b) Chondrichtyes during the Devonian. They are the cartilaginous fish such as sharks and rays. Intermediates and ancestors are unknown. c) Agnatha Fish in the Silurian. These were jawless fish with bony skeletons. Intermediates and ancestors should have fossilized but none are found. Most types became extinct but hagfish and lampreys are living jawless fish. d)Tetrapods in the early Carboniferous. These were many, diverse forms of four-legged amphibians that are believed to have evolved from fish. But no fossilized links to fish have been found and specific interrelationships of the numerous lineages is unknown. e) Amniotes in the late Carboniferous. Amniotes are characterized by their complex reproductive system and include reptiles, birds and mammals. They are believed to have evolved from amphibians but their ancestry has not been determined from the fossil record. f) Archosaurs in the late Permian. They were reptiles with diverse sizes and shapes that became extinct in the Triassic. Some as long as six meters have been found. g ) Dinosaurs in the late Triassic. Dinosaurs include the largest terrestrial animals that have ever lived. Their diversity in size and shape was spectacular. Their ancestry is unknown and specific interrelationships of the numerous types is unknown. h) Teleosts in the late Cretaceous. These are bony fish approximately 20,000 living species in 35 orders and 409 families. Interrelationships of the higher groups are unknown. i) Therian mammals in the late Cretaceous and early Tertiary. These are placental and marsupial mammals. When they first appear in the fossil record, they are very diverse and interrelationships are unknown. j) Birds in the late Cretaceous and early Tertiary. There are estimates of 8900 living species in 166 families and about 27 orders. Fossil evidence is lacking for establishing the interrelationships of the orders of birds. "The sweep of anatomical diversity reached a maximum right after the initial diversification of multicellular animals. The later history of life proceeded by elimination not expansion." Stephen J. Gould, Harvard, Wonderful Life, 1989, p.46
Which agrees with the evidence we have from population genetics:
"...but Natural Selection reduces genetic information and we know this from all the Genetic Population studies that we have..." Maciej Marian Giertych - Population Geneticist - EXPELLED EXPELLED - Natural Selection And Genetic Mutations - video http://www.metacafe.com/watch/4036840
Now markf, you may not like the implications of 'top down' design one bit, but, despite you personal atheistic, nihilistic, preferences for what the evidence should look like, it is clearly thoroughly disingenuous of you to say that ID doesn’t even begin to try to explain what happened, for as far as I can see ID explains what we find in ALL the evidence extremely well. Moreover ID does this from first principles of science, which is far more than I can say for neo-Darwinism for neo-Darwinism which doesn't fit the evidence well at all, nor does it even have a foundation in science in which to refer to for its basis!!!: etc.. etc.. etc.. verse and music:
Genesis 1:21 & 25 So God created great sea creatures and every living thing that moves, with which the waters abounded, according to their kind, and every winged bird according to its kind. And God saw that it was good.,,,,, each according to its kind”; and it was so. 25 And God made the beast of the earth according to its kind, cattle according to its kind, and everything that creeps on the earth according to its kind. And God saw that it was good. U2 - Magnificent http://www.godtube.com/watch/?v=7K6DDLNX
bornagain77_{October 30, 2011
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markf, please explain exactly how 'reasonable and polite' are grounded in the atheist's materialistic worldview.bornagain77_{October 30, 2011
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Scott (I assume that is your name) – you are one of the most reasonable and polite IDists on this forum – and it would be sad to alienate you because of the tone of comments. However, GinoB makes some very strong points. 1) Genetic variation plus natural selection plus genetic drift is a potential explanation of the fossil evidence for which it is possible to gather evidence. 2) As well as the actual fossil record (which is of course can only give us a very limited sample of the phenotypes of organisms at the time) there are other sources of evidence for what happened genetically (as GinoB’s references indicate) – for example: Analogies with observed current genetic change Cladistic analysis of the genes of living organisms Naturally there is a lot of uncertainty about exactly what happened millions of years ago and hypotheses will change in the light of evidence – but that is quite different from saying “we just don’t know”. The fossil record provides strong evidence as to the pattern of physical change. Cladistic analysis plus our understanding and observation of current change in living things is very strong evidence for how change happened in the past. You may disagree with the conclusions of the experts who have spent their careers studying this evidence. But if you accept that such things as a fossil record, cladistic analysis and analogy with current change count as evidence then it is wrong to describe it as “shows a willingness to tell and believe any story when necessary to shield the candle of their faith from the blizzard of reality.” unless you are also very familiar with this evidence. Meanwhile what about ID? It doesn’t even begin to try to explain what happened. All it can do is pick holes in other explanations.markf_{October 30, 2011
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Whale Evolution vs. The Actual Evidence – video - fraudulent fossils revealed http://vimeo.com/30921402 Whale Evolution? - Exposing The Deception - Dr. Terry Mortenson - video http://www.metacafe.com/watch/4032568
Here are some quotes by leading paleontologists on the true state of the fossil record:
"The point emerges that if we examine the fossil record in detail, whether at the level of orders or of species, we find' over and over again' not gradual evolution, but the sudden explosion of one group at the expense of another." Paleontologist, Derek V. Ager "A major problem in proving the theory has been the fossil record; the imprints of vanished species preserved in the Earth's geological formations. This record has never revealed traces of Darwin's hypothetical intermediate variants - instead species appear and disappear abruptly, and this anomaly has fueled the creationist argument that each species was created by God." Paleontologist, Mark Czarnecki "There is no need to apologize any longer for the poverty of the fossil record. In some ways, it has become almost unmanageably rich and discovery is outpacing integration. The fossil record nevertheless continues to be composed mainly of gaps." Professor of paleontology - Glasgow University, T. Neville George "Evolution requires intermediate forms between species and paleontology does not provide them." David Kitts - Paleontologist "The long-term stasis, following a geologically abrupt origin, of most fossil morphospecies, has always been recognized by professional paleontologists" – Stephen Jay Gould - Harvard "Given the fact of evolution, one would expect the fossils to document a gradual steady change from ancestral forms to the descendants. But this is not what the paleontologist finds. Instead, he or she finds gaps in just about every phyletic series." - Ernst Mayr-Professor Emeritus, Museum of Comparative Zoology at Harvard University "What is missing are the many intermediate forms hypothesized by Darwin, and the continual divergence of major lineages into the morphospace between distinct adaptive types." Robert L Carroll - Paleontologist "Now, after over 120 years of the most extensive and painstaking geological exploration of every continent and ocean bottom, the picture is infinitely more vivid and complete than it was in 1859. Formations have been discovered containing hundreds of billions of fossils and our museums now are filled with over 100 million fossils of 250,000 different species. The availability of this profusion of hard scientific data should permit objective investigators to determine if Darwin was on the right track. What is the picture which the fossils have given us? ... The gaps between major groups of organisms have been growing even wider and more undeniable. They can no longer be ignored or rationalized away with appeals to imperfection of the fossil record." Luther D. Sunderland, Darwin's Enigma 1988, Fossils and Other Problems, 4th edition, Master Books, p. 9 "The evidence we find in the geological record is not nearly as compatible with Darwinian natural selection as we would like it to be .... We now have a quarter of a million fossil species but the situation hasn't changed much. The record of evolution is surprisingly jerky and, ironically, we have even fewer examples of evolutionary transition than in Darwin's time ... so Darwin's problem has not been alleviated". David Raup, Curator of Geology at Chicago's Field Museum of Natural History "In virtually all cases a new taxon appears for the first time in the fossil record with most definitive features already present, and practically no known stem-group forms." Fossils and Evolution, TS Kemp - Curator of Zoological Collections, Oxford University, Oxford Uni Press, p246, 1999 "Every paleontologist knows that most new species, genera, and families, and that nearly all categories above the level of family appear in the record suddenly and are not led up to by known, gradual, completely continuous transitional sequences.” George Gaylord Simpson (evolutionist), The Major Features of Evolution, New York, Columbia University Press, 1953 p. 360. "No wonder paleontologists shied away from evolution for so long. It seems never to happen. Assiduous collecting up cliff faces yields zigzags, minor oscillations, and the very occasional slight accumulation of change over millions of years, at a rate too slow to really account for all the prodigious change that has occurred in evolutionary history. When we do see the introduction of evolutionary novelty, it usually shows up with a bang, and often with no firm evidence that the organisms did not evolve elsewhere! Evolution cannot forever be going on someplace else. Yet that's how the fossil record has struck many a forlorn paleontologist looking to learn something about evolution." - Niles Eldredge , "Reinventing Darwin: The Great Evolutionary Debate," 1996, p.95 "Enthusiastic paleontologists in several countries have claimed pieces of this missing record, but the claims have all been disputed and in any case do not provide real connections. That brings me to the second most surprising feature of the fossil record...the abruptness of some of the major changes in the history of life." Ager, D. - Author of "The Nature of the Stratigraphical Record"-1981 "The extreme rarity of transitional forms in the fossil record persists as the trade secret of paleontology." Stephen Jay Gould "Why, if species have descended from other species by fine gradations, do we not everywhere see innumerable transitional forms? Why is not all nature in confusion, instead of the species being, as we see them, well defined? But, as by this theory innumerable transitional forms must have existed, why do we not find them embedded in countless numbers in the crust of the earth? But in the intermediate region, having intermediate conditions of life, why do we not now find closely-linking intermediate varieties?" Charles Darwin - Origin Of Species "The history of most fossil species includes two features inconsistent with gradualism:. Statis. Most species exhibit no directional change during their tenure on earth. They appear in the fossil record looking much the same as when they disappear…. Sudden Appearance. In any local area, a species does not arise gradually by the steady transformation of its ancestors; it appears all at once and 'fully formed'. The evolutionary trees that adorn our textbooks have data only at the tips and nodes of their branches; the rest is inference, however reasonable, not the evidence of fossils." Stephen Jay Gould, - Evolution's Erratic Pace - 1977 "Many species remain virtually unchanged for millions of years, then suddenly disappear to be replaced by a quite different, but related, form. Moreover, most major groups of animals appear abruptly in the fossil record, fully formed, and with no fossils yet discovered that form a transition from their parent group." (C.P. Hickman, L.S. Roberts, and F.M. Hickman, Integrated Principles of Zoology, p. 866 (1988, 8th ed.). How to Fill In Missing Fossils: Imagine Them – Quote from author of article; “If you visualize evolutionary relationships in the form of branching diagrams and then plot them on a time scale, new patterns begin to emerge, with gaps in the fossil record suddenly filling rapidly.” http://www.creationsafaris.com/crev201105.htm#20110509a
bornagain77_{October 29, 2011
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ScottAndrews2
GinoB: "But the fossils do document smooth morphological changes over time, physical changes we know today are caused by genetic changes. The genetic record of today does document the genetic history and degree of interrelatedness of different lineages." Interesting how you put those thoughts together, as if you think they complement one another.
Sorry for you, but they do complement one another. For example, we've recently been discussion cetacean evolution. The genetic evidence shows cetaceans are most closely related to Artiodactyla - pigs, peccaries, hippopotamuses, camels, deer, giraffes Inclusion of cetaceans within the order Artiodactyla based on phylogenetic analysis of pancreatic ribonuclease genes. There is also complementary fossil evidence in the form of Artiodactyla type ankles and vertebrae in proto-whale fossil specimens. Skeletons of terrestrial cetaceans and the relationship of whales to artiodactyls It's both funny and sad that Creationists like you and Joseph love to claim there is no evidence when there are literally tens of thousands of scientific papers only a few mouse clicks away.GinoB_{October 29, 2011
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Bat Evolution? - No Transitional Fossils! - video http://www.metacafe.com/watch/6003501/
Moreover, identical forms of echolocation show up in widely divergent species from whales. This finding is unexpected from an evolutionary perspective, yet this finding is exactly what we would expect to find from presupposing a Creator to reuse optimal designs:
Convergence Drives Evolution Batty - Fazale Rana - September 2010 Excerpt: The multiple, independent origin of echolocation in these animals (twice in bats and once in toothed whales) exemplifies convergence,,, When examined from an evolutionary perspective, convergence doesn’t make much sense.,,, the latest research demonstrates that—again, from an evolutionary perspective—the genetic and biochemical changes that account for the emergence of echolocation in bats and dolphins is identical. Given the random nature of the evolutionary process, this recent discovery doesn’t match what evolutionary biologists would expect to find. But both the discovery and convergence make sense if life stems from the work of a Creator. http://www.reasons.org/convergence-drives-evolution-batty Common Design in Bat and Whale Echolocation Genes? - January 2011 Excerpt: two new studies in the January 26th issue of Current Biology, a Cell Press publication, show that bats' and whales' remarkable ability and the high-frequency hearing it depends on are shared at a much deeper level than anyone would have anticipated -- all the way down to the molecular level. http://www.evolutionnews.org/2011/01/common_design_in_bat_and_whale042291.html Bat and Whale Echolocation Genes Point to Common Design - February 2011 - Podcast http://intelligentdesign.podomatic.com/entry/2011-02-21T10_59_16-08_00
But neo-Darwinism is experimentally shown to historically contingent thus ruling out evolutionary convergence:
Lenski's Citrate E-Coli - Disproof of Convergent Evolution - Fazale Rana - video (the disproof of convergence starts at the 2:45 minute mark of the video) http://www.metacafe.com/watch/4564682 The Long Term Evolution Experiment - Analysis Excerpt: The experiment just goes to show that even with historical contingency and extreme selection pressure, the probability of random mutations causing even a tiny evolutionary improvement in digestion is, in the words of the researchers who did the experiment, “extremely low.” Therefore, it can’t be the explanation for the origin and varieity of all the forms of life on Earth. http://www.scienceagainstevolution.org/v12i11f.htm
The loss of 'convergent evolution', as a argument for molecular sequence similarity, is a major blow to neo-Darwinian story telling:
Implications of Genetic Convergent Evolution for Common Descent - Casey Luskin - Sept. 2010 Excerpt: When building evolutionary trees, evolutionists assume that functional genetic similarity is the result of inheritance from a common ancestor. Except for when it isn't. And when the data doesn't fit their assumptions, evolutionists explain it away as the result of "convergence." Using this methodology, one can explain virtually any dataset. Is there a way to falsify common descent, even in the face of convergent genetic similarity? If convergent genetic evolution is common, how does one know if their tree is based upon homologous sequences or convergent ones? Critics like me see the logic underlying evolutionary trees to be methodologically inconsistent, unpersuasive, and ultimately arbitrary. http://www.evolutionnews.org/2010/09/implications_of_genetic_conver037841.html
This following video takes a honest look, from the population genetics equations evolutionists use themselves, at just what neo-Darwinian evolutionists are up against to satisfactorily explain supposed whale evolution from a truly scientific point of view:
Whale Evolution Vs. Population Genetics - Richard Sternberg PhD. in Evolutionary Biology - video http://www.metacafe.com/watch/4165203 Oxford University Admits Darwinism's Shaky Math Foundation - May 2011 Excerpt: However, mathematical population geneticists mainly deny that natural selection leads to optimization of any useful kind. This fifty-year old schism is intellectually damaging in itself, and has prevented improvements in our concept of what fitness is. - On a 2011 Job Description for a Mathematician, at Oxford, to 'fix' the persistent mathematical problems with neo-Darwinism within two years. Bernard d'Abrera on Butterfly Mimicry and the Faith of the Evolutionist - October 5, 2011 Excerpt: For it to happen in a single species once through chance, is mathematically highly improbable. But when it occurs so often, in so many species, and we are expected to apply mathematical probability yet again, then either mathematics is a useless tool, or we are being criminally blind.,,, Evolutionism (with its two eldest daughters, phylogenetics and cladistics) is the only systematic synthesis in the history of the universe that proposes an Effect without a Final Cause. It is a great fraud, and cannot be taken seriously because it outrageously attempts to defend the philosophically indefensible.
further note:
Why Darwin was wrong about the (genetic) tree of life: - 21 January 2009 Excerpt: Syvanen recently compared 2000 genes that are common to humans, frogs, sea squirts, sea urchins, fruit flies and nematodes. In theory, he should have been able to use the gene sequences to construct an evolutionary tree showing the relationships between the six animals. He failed. The problem was that different genes told contradictory evolutionary stories. This was especially true of sea-squirt genes. Conventionally, sea squirts - also known as tunicates - are lumped together with frogs, humans and other vertebrates in the phylum Chordata, but the genes were sending mixed signals. Some genes did indeed cluster within the chordates, but others indicated that tunicates should be placed with sea urchins, which aren't chordates. "Roughly 50 per cent of its genes have one evolutionary history and 50 per cent another," Syvanen says. ."We've just annihilated the tree of life. It's not a tree any more, it's a different topology entirely," says Syvanen. "What would Darwin have made of that?" http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20126921.600-why-darwin-was-wrong-about-the-tree-of-life.html
bornagain77_{October 29, 2011
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Link to the last paper seems hosed. Try this one Transfer of a large gene regulatory apparatus to a new developmental address in echinoid evolutionGinoB_{October 29, 2011
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