For scientists who accept evolution

[hammegk]

That would depend on your level of understanding. Do you see 'intermediate forms" between chihuahuas & great danes? Or would you, if you were looking at their fossils in 30 million years?

 

[Badly Shaved Monkey]

Agreed that YEC's have problems; OEC's less so. Yet, do you contend all statements made by them are false?

Well, to say "all" would be a bit strong about anything, but to the extent that I have looked at these things I have either found their views to be slippery lies or unfalsifiable irrelevances. The unfalsifiability makes it hard to declare their statements false, they are neither true nor false.

To be frank, though, I'd have a tough time defining what an OEC is. Once you move from the childish Bible-literalism of the YEC position there is no uniquely definable Creationist philosophy.

Anyone with a mature religious outlook should be able to accept whatever science finds and not find that it encroaches into their religion. If science threatens their faith then it was not much of a faith. Religion concerns a different kind of truth.

They also have to face the internal contradiction that God gave them the brains to do science. It is frankly presumptuous to throw that gift away by trying to deny what science has found. They presume to read the mind of God in defining what is allowable and unallowable knowledge, which is another example of their bad theology.

Little minds trying to stamp out self-evident facts are not a good advertisement for religion.

 

[Badly Shaved Monkey]

That would depend on your level of understanding. Do you see 'intermediate forms" between chihuahuas & great danes? Or would you, if you were looking at their fossils in 30 million years?

It's not very relevant, but although chihuahua and great dane eggs and sperm would almost certainly still make puppies, the actual dogs are completely reproductively isolated now by their size difference. Of course there was an intermediate ancestral form from which their ancestors would have been less reproductvely isolated though still mutually isolated.

We selected them, but it's a good example of how speciation works. Give it a little longer and I'd bet you good money that they would not be fully cross fertile as little genetic changes make the molecular biology of egg, sperm and uterine immune system etc incompatible.

 

[hammegk]

We selected them, but it's a good example of how speciation works. Give it a little longer and I'd bet you good money that they would not be fully cross fertile as little genetic changes make the molecular biology of egg, sperm and uterine immune system etc incompatible.

Agreed that would be defined as "speciation" by evolutionists. Unfortunately, in the real world many us of inhabit, dogs is dogs.

Would you be willing to bet good money that dna analysis would show greater divergence between chihuahuas & great danes as it would between a group of either?

 

[Dr Adequate]

Now could we have something relevant to the question of whether the fossils are intermediate forms?

I'm waiting.

I'm still waiting.

 

[hammegk]

I'm still waiting.

I've done sufficient looking to convince myself your "intermediate forms" dino-bird suffer the usual evolutionist warts -- the could bes, may bes, might bes -- and remain unconvincing to a sceptic. Perhaps the next fossil discovery will be 'the final proof' huh?

No amount of effort on my part would ever be enough to convince you.

I hope that non-participants may look at some of the background I did dredge up, and decide to look at The Theory with a more jaundiced eye than previously.

 

[Dr Adequate]

I've done sufficient looking to convince myself

Oh well done. Very well done. You wouldn't like to tell the rest of us what you find so convincing, would you? Otherwise, I shall prefer the scientific opinion of, let us say, 72 Nobel Prize winners, over that of a guy who refusing to give the reasoning behind a set of opinions which he appears to be making up as he goes along.

No amount of effort on my part would ever be enough to convince you.

So, to summarize. First you say you will take a look at the data. Then you say that it is impossible for anyone to look at the data, so you can't. Then you say that not only have you looked at the data but that it proves you right --- but you refuse to discuss it any further except to announce how right you think you are.

I hope that non-participants may look at some of the background I did dredge up, and decide to look at The Theory with a more jaundiced eye than previously.

I hope that non-participants will notice how without once discussing the question of whether the morphology of the fossils I named is, or is not, intermediate, nor pointing out any conceivable relevance of his links to this question, the fundie parrot has fled whimpering from a challenge of his own choosing.

 

[Dr Adequate]

Let's watch it again in slow motion. It's like a master class in clowning. He flipflops, he stands on his head, He ducks the question, he loses his balance, he flails wildly in the air, he takes the pratfall, he gets up, he takes a bow and he backpedals his unicycle out of the big top --- and, like all the great clowns, he has the air of taking himself perfectly seriously throughout.

Cite the "intermediate form" you like best, and we'll take a detailed look at the underlying data and assumptions.

I'd be happy to let you pick, but since you ask, let's do the transition through forms represented by featherless therapods such as Deinychus and Comsognathus, feathered wingless therapods such as Caudipteryx, Sinosauropteryx, Sinornithosaurus, and Protoarchaeopteryx, winged therapods such as Archaeopteyrx, primitive birds such as Sinornis, and modern birds.

The underlying assumption is that "intermediate forms" means exactly what Darwin said it did in the Origin of Species, and the underlying data is the fossils.

A bit of light reading for our hardcore evolutionists on some of Dr.A's favorite "intermediate links".

So your promised "detailed look at the underlying data and assumptions" is in fact a link to YEC crapola? Why am I not surprised? ... How far are you going to backpedal?

hammy challenged me to name the intermediate forms of his choice, and said that he would take a close look at the evidence. He hasn't, has he?

And as we both know, no single individual will ever be able to look at every question in the detail it needs.

Nice backpedalling.

If you "know" that it is impossible to do what you offered to do, then why did you offer to do it?

Or shall we switch to cetacean legs?

You request to be let off the hook is denied.

Dromeosaurs to birds it is.

Now could we have something relevant to the question of whether the fossils are intermediate forms?

I'm waiting.

Perhaps others who are not as brain-washed as you may find at least parts of the articles relevant.

I'm still waiting.

I've done sufficient looking to convince myself... No amount of effort on my part would ever be enough to convince you.

This has been fun. We must do it again sometime with some even more incontrovertable statement.

 

[Dr Adequate]

PS: Can anyone think of one?

 

[stamenflicker]

I'm still waiting.

Let's start with the first point in Hammy's link just for shinz-nit and giggles.

"So how do the millions of years required for evolution mesh with the fact that “air breathers” can survive for only a few moments (at most) if a disruption to their respiratory system occurs? How can you take a “two-way” reptile lung and over a period of minutes evolve it into a fully functional “one-way” bird lung?"

* * * *

"To suggest that the “debilitating condition of a diaphragmatic hernia would have immediately compromised the entire pulmonary apparatus” and thus be “unlikely to have been of any selective advantage” is nothing more than scientific “prestige jargon” for stating the obvious: in other words, the animal would not have been able to breathe."

Did the lung need to shift, or is the author feeding us with caca? If so, was there an intermediate form of lung? Are there any species which now contain this type of intermediate lung? What was the survival advantage of the shifting lung? How did the species manage during the shift? If there wasn't a survival advantage to the lung shift, why did it change? How did the species survive during the shift?

These questions seem empirical enough to me, after all we know what lungs do across a wide variety of species. Do we have to imagine the intermediate lung, or do we have an example? Is animal physiology off the table when evaluating intermediate forms?

PS: what the heck does the author mean by "good air" and "bad air?" Does he mean to be referring to oxygen and carbon dioxide?

Flick

ETA: By the way, how will we ever know if these were intermediate forms and not merely extinct independant species?

 

[Bronze Dog]

I have this terrible feeling of deja vu. Mudskippers, lungfish, and so forth have what could be called intermediate lungs. Incomplete lungs aren't suitable for long-term land life, but they are useful for escaping from a shrinking pond and moving into a larger one.

 

[delphi_ote]

Unfortunately, in the real world many us of inhabit, dogs is dogs.

Right. Species are so simple, but the crazy evolutionists don't even have a grasp on it.

Please, define what it means to be a dog. Go ahead. Seriously.

 

[delphi_ote]

I did a little research. Don't worry. It's on the house.

Ancient origin and evolution of the Indian wolf: evidence from mitochondrial DNA typing of wolves from Trans-Himalayan region and Pennisular India

http://genomebiology.com/2003/4/6/P6

Mitochondrial DNA control region sequences were analyzed from 162 wolves at 27 localities worldwide and from 140 domestic dogs representing 67 breeds. Sequences from both dogs and wolves showed considerable diversity and supported the hypothesis that wolves were the ancestors of dogs. Most dog sequences belonged to a divergent monophyletic clade sharing no sequences with wolves. The sequence divergence within this clade suggested that dogs originated more than 100,000 years before the present. Associations of dog haplotypes with other wolf lineages indicated episodes of admixture between wolves and dogs. Repeated genetic exchange between dog and wolf populations may have been an important source of variation for artificial selection.

http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/conte...oken=34f0e85909d3b2df6605d27fe353dda222629f31

Comparative analysis of mammalian genomes provides important insight into the structure and function of genes. However, the comparative analysis of gene sequences from individuals of the same and different species also provides insight into the evolution of genes, populations, and species. We exemplify these two uses of genomic information. First, we document the evolutionary relationships of the domestic dog to other carnivores by using a variety of DNA-based information. A phylogenetic comparison of mitochondrial DNA sequences in dogs and gray wolves shows that dogs may have originated from multiple wolf populations at a time much earlier than suggested by the archaeologic record. We discuss previous theories about dog development and evolution in light of the new genetic data. Second, we review recent progress in dog genetic mapping due to the development of hypervariable markers and specific chromosome paints. Extensive genetic homology in gene order and function between humans and dogs has been discovered. The dog promises to be a valuable model for identifying genes that control morphologic differences between mammals as well as understanding genetically based disease.

http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/cgi-bin/abstract/55003333/ABSTRACT

As you can see, dogs is defintiely dogs. I don't understand why anyone would have trouble with this...

ETA: Here's what mitochondrial DNA is, in case you need a little help:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mitochondrial_DNA

 

[delphi_ote]

ETA: By the way, how will we ever know if these were intermediate forms and not merely extinct independant species?

Genetics in present species should help shed some light on that. Approximating how far back species with lungs diverged from species without lungs would give us the appropriate time for an intermediate species to exist. If that time period correlates to the layers we find this particular species in the fossil record, that would be supporting evidence that we're looking at the honest to FSM intermediate form.

 

[Dr Adequate]

Let's start with the first point in Hammy's link just for shinz-nit and giggles.

"So how do the millions of years required for evolution mesh with the fact that “air breathers” can survive for only a few moments (at most) if a disruption to their respiratory system occurs? How can you take a “two-way” reptile lung and over a period of minutes evolve it into a fully functional “one-way” bird lung?"

So ... is this guy is genuinely dumb enough to believe that the process of mutation involves a surgical operation, and that a mutation of the lung requires some animal to stop breathing for a while so that the old lungs can be taken out and new lungs put in? Or is this a deliberate attempt to deceive?

Did the lung need to shift, or is the author feeding us with caca?

Well, picking up the nearest book on vertebrate evolution that comes to hand, I find that "lung systems with air sacs are also seen in some modern reptiles, which demonstrates their distant kinship with birds."

So between the failures of biological theory and fact, I go with the "caca" option.

But this is irrelevant anyway. The question of whether the fossils represent intermediate forms is morphological. Yet one more argument from ignorance doesn't change this.

Me: This is a duck.
YEC: How do you know? Your claim that this is a duck rests on your Evil Evolutionist assumptions!
Me: It looks like a duck, it walks like a duck, and it quacks like a duck.
YEC: But you can't explain exactly how its lungs evolved. Therefore it was made by God six thousand years ago! Therefore it isn't a duck.
Me: Even if your reasoning was correct, which it isn't, and even if your conclusion was correct, which it isn't, that still wouldn't affect the question of whether or not this is a duck.

ETA: By the way, how will we ever know if these were intermediate forms and not merely extinct independant species?

We know that they are intermediate forms by their morphology (study of form).

I think I see where confusion's creeping in, so let's be clear about this: given the very small number of known fossils relevant to the descent of birds, I consider it very unlikely that amongst them we have a line of descent from dinosaurs to modern birds. What are the odds, for example, that Sinornis, rather than similar species living at the same time, should be ancestral to modern birds, and that we should happen to find the fossil of that species, rather than one of the others? Of course, it might be, but there's no way we could ever know this.

This is why the theory of evolution predicts the discovery of intermediate forms in the fossil record, rather than predicting that one day we will learn from the fossil record something that the fossil record can't possibly tell us.

 

[stamenflicker]

As you can see, dogs is defintiely dogs. I don't understand why anyone would have trouble with this...

Hey thanks for the links delphi. It's morning and I haven't read them short of what you posted, but I'm curious about this:

"A phylogenetic comparison of mitochondrial DNA sequences in dogs and gray wolves shows that dogs may have originated from multiple wolf populations at a time much earlier than suggested by the archaeologic record."

Some of the articles I've been stumbling on lately seem to have a common theme to them. Unfortunately, I don't have access to your full link to read their justification for the above statement. But the common theme has been a sort of assertion that genetic homology or molecular biology doesn't always wash with the narrative account of evolution. Everything I've been looking at seems to be coming from Darwinists, so don't here me saying their out there trying to disprove evolution. But the common theme is, "Hey, after a closer look we might need to re-figure this..."

I wonder your opinion on this subject, and the accusation by many that evolutionists keep moving the goalposts whenever evidence from homologies other than anatomical are now being increasingly utilized.

I would also wonder your opinion on the article I've linked to twice, since no one else wants to comment on it. Specifically with regard to evolution, of what accuracy is a genetic study without a defined outgroup?

Flick

 

[Badly Shaved Monkey]

Agreed that would be defined as "speciation" by evolutionists. Unfortunately, in the real world many us of inhabit, dogs is dogs.

Well, the fact that you don't get it doesn't invalidate my argument

Would you be willing to bet good money that dna analysis would show greater divergence between chihuahuas & great danes as it would between a group of either?

This is irrelevant to my argument. We have morphological separation. Genetic divergence of the current populations would prove my point but its absence does not disprove it. In other words it doesn't help you whatever the outcome but it might help me.

What does interest me is why you need to present the fundies' arguments as if they were true?

 

[Badly Shaved Monkey]

Can I just point out that your unicycle is going forwards not backwards!

 

[Badly Shaved Monkey]

http://www.ulb.ac.be/sciences/ueg/pd...&Weiler_98.pdf

Is that the link you complain no one has followed?

Error 404: Le document que vous avez demandé n'est pas/plus disponible sur le serveur Web de l'ULB.

 

[Badly Shaved Monkey]

Flick,

I also put the text into Google;

"Your search - "The contrary common descent is an inference drawn (amongst other things) from the existence of intermediate forms" - did not match any documents"