Kot, I don't have time to waste on your long posts that skew the facts. Suffice to say, you are just wrong.
In short, you continue your proud tradition of dodging questions, refusing to give evidence for your claims, lie, and restate positions that have been consistently shown to be wrong. I suppose that in Davison-land, this counts as a victory for the creationists/IDers/frontloaders-a-la-Davison.
I note also that my prediction came true. Fancy that.
Randman: I can condense my last post to this simple, one-paragraph question:
Can you or can you not present evidence that Ludwig Rütimeyer, author of the first known critique and exposure of Haeckel's drawings was a creationist, IDer, or at least would have been counted as one had he lived to day, or alternatively show that another person who would be counted to one of those categories published a critique or exposure of Haeckel's darwings prior to Rütimeyer, or is your claim that the first criticism of Haeckel's drawings came from within the creationist camp simply not correct, and if so, will you admit it?
For example, evos specifically argued that non-functional DNA was particularly strong evidence for evolution because they argued there was no rationale way for similar sequences to have appeared without being passed on via common ancestry.
But at the same time, they argued that
functional DNA was also strong evidence for evolution, no? Or is it your position that evos used to argue that
only non-functional DNA was evidence for evolution, whereas functional DNA was not? Otherwise, it is just, as I made clear to you this spring, a case of moving a particular sequence of DNA from the category "non-functional DNA that is strong evidence for evolution" to the category "functional DNA that is strong evidence for evolution".
The label we put on it, again, does not matter, as long as the data behaves as we would expect or predict if evolutionary theory works. Or is it your understanding that the data suddenly changed once it was realized that a particular sequence was not non-functional?
of course, they were wrong on many counts. First, even non-functional DNA may be more likely to mutate into a certain pattern but the larger argument was that the DNA would be found to be functional. You likely cannot figure it out from here but should be able to.
Again, if I am so vastly ignorant of these matters, whereas you are so extremely knowledgeable, why not educate me? Is it because your
opinion on this is as solidly founded as your
opinion that Rütimeyer was a creationist, based on a single line of text
by Darwin?
I can certainly understand why non-functional DNA would be considered strong evidence for evolution. I can also understand why functional DNA would be considered strong evidence for evolution. What I cannot understand if why sequences that behave according to the predictions of evolutionary theory magically stop doing so as soon as we change the label on them due to increased knowledge. I can understand the logic of the real world, but you prefer the logic of Davison-land, and if you want to make yourself understood, you will need to explain this logic better.
Repetition of functional sequences is explained by function of design.
Possibly. It is also explained by the theory of evolution, which is more parsimonious, and thus preferred.
Oh, and as far as nested hierarchies, if molecular data is inconsistent with it, what do evos do?
The longest debate we had, you and I, this spring, was over whether or not you could actually show any evidence whatsoever for your claim that there are groups in published phylogenies that cannot be explained by evolutionary theory. Over the entire time we discussed this, your evidence amounted to "I have already shown you a pile of evidence". I challenged you to chose any published phylogenetic tree you wanted, identify the groups recovered in it that would not, indeed could not, be predicted by evolutionary theory, explain why, and explain how they are predicted by Davison's god-based front-loading idea. I am still waiting for that phylogeny.
Do they drop the argument?
Nah.
Why should they? The only was data does not give a nested hierarchy is if it is all identical, and thus forms a great basal polytomy, but that only means that
more or
another form of data is needed. It may be okay where you come from -- as evidenced by your behaviour -- to simply drop difficult questions and walk away, but for a scientist, simply not knowing is not enough. If present data cannot explain a phenomenon, the strategy of choice is to get more data, not to pin the phenomenon on god, as for instance Davison does.
Here's a little illustration though not of Miller and Levine's textbook but of a later one.
http://www.discovery.org/scripts/viewDB/filesDB-download.php?command=download&id=1224
And, surprisingly, it differs from Haeckel's drawings in almost every part. Why do you suddenly present evidence that disproves your own claims? Have you changed your mind?
My guess is "no", because you have shown that picture before, and then, as now, this was because you, like Davison, believe "similar" and "identical" are the same thing.
Well, I said they used them, and I was right. You are trying to suggest that since they elaborated (maybe, it's hard to tell with the 1994 drawings), then they didn't use them, but that's just adding a qualifier I did not add.
Plus, the drawings are virtually identical anyway.
Oh my, according to this marine fauna field guide I am reading, God is a kind of Gadiform fish, with a white lateral line on a grey-green spotted background, a small beard, and three dorsal fins! Funny, they have called God "Cod" in this book, but it's virtually the same!
Reality, if you USE them to base your drawings on them, you USED them. Already explained that a long while ago on other threads.
To claim that you "explained" is to paint yourself in too charitable a colour. You certainly reiterated it.
Your God forbid you actually think through why this source would do what it did....
