"Natural selection is the only mechanism of adaptive evolution"

[randman]

Aww, I was enjoying watching him flail around in his sheer ignorance. I was even gonna give him a hint ("Some cryptozoologists say one is still in Loch Ness!").

Same response below to Reality.....you guys don't realize that whereas I have heard and studied all of your arguments, you often have not heard the other side.

I am fully aware of it. I am also aware you guys haven't really thought it out that well. Specifically, how would existing sharks and fish be less fit to occupy those niches than mammals?

A land mammal is more able to occupy an aquatic niche than existing aquatic creatures?

That's your argument.

And you call that science.

 

[truethat]

You never read the papers suggesting Pakicetus was fully aquatic, did you? It's not just the way it's presented. It's in the science itself, which is why Pierre Grasse described it as deceit, either unconscious and in some cases conscious. Those are his words, not mine.

The simple reality is science should be about promoting a careful and judicious analysis of the facts, not always promoting wild overstatements and illogic as has often been the case with evolutionists.

Grasse has his opinion. We have all agreed there is controversy in science. Why does this surprise you?

Science does promote these things. This is why it changes all the time.

This is also why I say you are looking for an "answer" rather than an observation.

You seem to expect scientists not to say anything unless they can prove it 100 percent. That's not how science works. Science is explored based on ideas about data. Sometimes the interpretation turns out to be right, sometimes wrong. When it is examined, if it is wrong it is changed.

This is all you are showing in your information.

 

[A'isha]

Same response below to Reality.....you guys don't realize that whereas I have heard and studied all of your arguments, you often have not heard the other side.

You don't have "another side". You just have denial.

I am fully aware of it. I am also aware you guys haven't really thought it out that well. Specifically, how would existing sharks and fish be less fit to occupy those niches than mammals?

For the same reason that plesiosaurs and pliosaurs occupied them, and existing sharks and fish didn't.

A land mammal is more able to occupy an aquatic niche than existing aquatic creatures?

That's your argument.

And you call that science.

Don't blame me because you have no understanding of the topic at hand.

 

[ehcks]

I suggest you didn't read later editions of The Origin of the Species.

Why should that matter? It's not like the bible. If The Origin of Species included some incorrect information, then we don't use that incorrect information.

As science marches on, many of the past scientists are shown to have been wrong about parts of their hypotheses and theories. They got something important started, and that's what we care about.

 

[Resume]

He has of course published. Gerald Van Dyke or something close to that is his name. It was very informative and included admissions from evos to the same factual claims he was talking of.

Where? It's your claim, cite please.

Also, you intimated he was a "creation scientist." Some evidence for that as well.

 

[ehcks]

A land mammal is more able to occupy an aquatic niche than existing aquatic creatures?

That's your argument.

And you call that science.

The niche was for large ocean predators. By large, I mean much larger than sharks. Aquatic dinosaur size. The largest fish is the whale shark, and it is not a predator. Instead, we have the sperm whale and killer whales as good examples.

And of course dolphins, for a smaller social ocean predator.

 

[Dinwar]

Specifically, how would existing sharks and fish be less fit to occupy those niches than mammals?

Cetaceans DID NOT occupy the same niches as sharks and fish. They occupied similar niches to wolves, then crocs, then sharks (and predators of sharks). This comment shows a gross ignorance of paleontology on randman's part.

you guys don't realize that whereas I have heard and studied all of your arguments, you often have not heard the other side.

Except for biology, paleontology, genetics, even BASIC textbooks, etc etc etc....

 

[Reality Check]

Wrong. Darwin even included the more extreme adult form recapitulation as evidence in a later edition of The Origin of the Species. It was very much part of evo theory. Evos have had a hard time letting it go.

Wrong. Haeckel's theory is about embryos. So "adult form recapitulation" is nothing to do with Haeckel.

Took 130 years of sustained criticism to get evos to even admit the drawings were faked.

Wrong: It took 130 years for creationists (and some textbook writers!) to relaize that evos have known that the drawings were faked since 1868 (L. Rutimeyer) and the later letter from Wilhelm His, Sr (1880s).

Also, that paper just shows even back then, scientists were disproving the claims of evos. It also addresses Von Baer's ideas principally, not Haeckel's, and though Von Baer was not an evolutionists, evos have always tried to and still try to use his claims as evidence for evolution, even today, despite papers going back to the 1800s indicating the idea of a phylotypic stage were incorrect.

Also, this post shows that you are ignorant of the nature of science and making more assertions without evidence.

Scientists are always disproving claims. They disproved the claims of Haeckel and Von Baer!

It is stupid to say the evos are still using Von Baer ideas without qualifying it. I am sure that there are some evos that are ignorant of the invalidity of those ideas.

 

[truethat]

To answer randman how specifically sharks would not occupy that niche. Sharks and fish are cold blooded animals. Whales are warm blooded and can travel into colder climates than sharks can. And so there's your niche. Quitcher bishing.

 

[randman]

The niche was for large ocean predators. By large, I mean much larger than sharks. Aquatic dinosaur size. The largest fish is the whale shark, and it is not a predator. Instead, we have the sperm whale and killer whales as good examples.

And of course dolphins, for a smaller social ocean predator.

What you guys don't realize because you have not carefully considered it is that you are arguing for directed evolution. This is easily shown by several facts. First, a niche is simply a description of what some organisms occupy in living biota. Second, once the large marine dinosaurs went extinct, there was no niche there, or are you really claiming as Grasse and others do that there is a predetermined niche, directed evolution?

Let me put it this way. Mammals did not compete with dinosaurs over the niche of apex predators in the ocean. By the time mammals are supposed to have evolved, dinosaurs did not exist and so they were not the apex predators. Other organisms were and so mammals came in to fill that niche already occupied. The niche of the dinosaurs no longer existed because they no longer existed.

Moreover, it's somewhat ludicrous if you are talking of size to posit that current aquatic animals were less able to evolve into larger size than land animals.

The truth is whales had to compete with large sharks, for example, for their niche as top predators. That's a simple fact.

 

[Reality Check]

I am fully aware of it. I am also aware you guys haven't really thought it out that well. Specifically, how would existing sharks and fish be less fit to occupy those niches than mammals?

A land mammal is more able to occupy an aquatic niche than existing aquatic creatures?

That's your argument.

And you call that science.

You are wrong. There is no "argument". There is evidence.
The fossil record shows that a land mammal was more able to occupy an aquatic niche than existing aquatic creatures.

That is science.

I suspect that it was just chance - a descendant of Pakicetus just happened to evolve a feature that suited it to the niche before other animals.

 

[randman]

You are wrong. There is no "argument". There is evidence.
The fossil record shows that a land mammal was more able to occupy an aquatic niche than existing aquatic creatures.

That is science.

I suspect that it was just chance - a descendant of Pakicetus just happened to evolve a feature that suited it to the niche before other animals.

Uh huh? Circular argument.....just must be, eh?

The fact is mammals competed with organisms like shark and fish, not dinosaurs, IF evolution happened. The explanation is that it's the very fact these niches already existed that enabled mammals to also become aquatic if one accepts the evo claims in the first place. No fish and other organisms would mean no mammals being able to eat them.

Also, the idea that cold-blooded creatures could not become very large is laughable as evolutionary biologists that argue for dinosaurs being cold-blooded have done so precisely because they are so large.

 

[randman]

To answer randman how specifically sharks would not occupy that niche. Sharks and fish are cold blooded animals. Whales are warm blooded and can travel into colder climates than sharks can. And so there's your niche. Quitcher bishing.

So there no fish in colder waters?

Wow.

You really believe that?

 

[ehcks]

What you guys don't realize because you have not carefully considered it is that you are arguing for directed evolution.

Nope. The only "direction" to evolution is towards an increased chance to survive and reproduce. Sometimes it means massive changes and entering an entirely different environment. Sometimes it means barely changing for hundreds of millions of years.

Sometimes it means bacteria that eat nylon. Sometimes it means crocodiles that have little changed from the time of the dinosaurs. Sometimes it means a land mammal adapts for life in the sea.

 

[randman]

Wrong. Haeckel's theory is about embryos. So "adult form recapitulation" is nothing to do with Haeckel.

[/B]
Wrong: It took 130 years for creationists (and some textbook writers!) to relaize that evos have known that the drawings were faked since 1868 (L. Rutimeyer) and the later letter from Wilhelm His, Sr (1880s).


Also, this post shows that you are ignorant of the nature of science and making more assertions without evidence.

Scientists are always disproving claims. They disproved the claims of Haeckel and Von Baer!

It is stupid to say the evos are still using Von Baer ideas without qualifying it. I am sure that there are some evos that are ignorant of the invalidity of those ideas.

You make me laugh a bit here....

Haeckel's theory is about embryos. So "adult form recapitulation" is nothing to do with Haeckel.

I agree. Evos typically exaggerated their claims and so men like darwin said Haeckel promoted adult form recapitulation and evos still say that, in fact. Just look at a wiki article, for example.

On the rest, it was evos not creationists still using Haeckel's data, and they acted surprised to learn it was false, and not just for textbooks, Richardson said in 1997 they all believed it essentially.

Why is that?

You'd think after 130 years of sustained criticism, they'd listen just once and learn.

 

[Reality Check]

What you guys don't realize because you have not carefully considered it is that you are arguing for directed evolution. ....

Wrong: Accidents like an asteroid hitting that earth that opens up a niche is not "directed" anything. It is just another way that environments change and species evolve to fit the environment.

You are right in: The truth is whales had to compete with large sharks, for example, for their niche as top predators. That's a simple fact.
The other simple fact is: Whales won ! (or to be more exact did not lose since there are still large sharks).

You need to be a little careful about your use of the term niche. Being a "top predator" is not a niche. An ecological niche is about an animals role in the entire eco system. It is a large set of environmental parameter not one.

 

[randman]

Where? It's your claim, cite please.

Also, you intimated he was a "creation scientist." Some evidence for that as well.

Are you unable to google. I did and this was the first thing that came up that shows he's available among others to present his slide-show and talk about the evidence.

http://www.tasc-creationscience.org/content/creation-presentations-available-0

How did he know Haeckel's drawings were faked back in the 80s and before that, but you guys didn't?

If creationists are such poor scientists, why did they know something so basic on the data and the evolutionist community did not?

It's not like it was a secret or anything.

 

[randman]

Nope. The only "direction" to evolution is towards an increased chance to survive and reproduce. Sometimes it means massive changes and entering an entirely different environment. Sometimes it means barely changing for hundreds of millions of years.

Sometimes it means bacteria that eat nylon. Sometimes it means crocodiles that have little changed from the time of the dinosaurs. Sometimes it means a land mammal adapts for life in the sea.

So you admit the niche was no longer there? Niches are descriptions of how organisms live in relationship to others. The dinosaurs were gone. How could their "niche" then continue to exist?

Whales did not fill a predetermined niche. They competed with sharks and fish for their niche.

 

[truethat]

So there no fish in colder waters?

Wow.

You really believe that?

Did I say there are no fish in colder waters? I'm talking about niches which are pretty irrelevant anyway but you brought it up.


Also you keep trying to have evolution be an answer. You are looking at it backwards. It is important for you to recognize these two flaws in your approach to the topic.

For example you say that these observations point to "DIRECTED" evolution. WHY?

Why? Because you are looking at it as an answer. A predicted "answer" to what is going on with natural life, instead of just the observation of the path evolution took.

Why did whales become the largest animals in the ocean? Because they DID. Why is fun and interesting but it's got nothing to do with observing the fact that they DID.

 

[randman]

You are right in: The truth is whales had to compete with large sharks, for example, for their niche as top predators. That's a simple fact.
The other simple fact is: Whales won ! (or to be more exact did not lose since there are still large sharks).

So you admit I was right then. Whales competed with sharks and fish, and without sharks and fish filling their niche, whales would not be there, right?

So it's wrong to claim once a niche is filled, nothing else can come in and create a new niche. That's just evolutionist hogwash. More organisms and more niches actually create more opportunity for evolution. Without organisms already filling the ocean, whales couldn't exist there either.