Jesus wept, Darwin hysterically cried?

[Aaron]

Do you not think that being able to sense light is better than not being able to sense light?

It would depend on my needs.

Then you see the advantage of an eyespot.

Do you think you can see an advantage if this spot were to be made a bit concave? Perhaps protection from damage? Perhaps a bit more surface area allowing it to detect finer changes in light intensity? Once the pit is about as deep as it is wide, you have the simple eye like flatworms have.

If the top of the pit begins to close in, visual acuity increases because the eye now begins to resemble that of a pinhole camera. A nautilus is a good example of an animal with this eye.

From here, do you see the advantage of a clear covering for protection? A clear covering is easy to make. For instance, a common way to simply destroy most of the components of a cell that make it opaque, like in our own eyes.

Once you have the clear covering, can you see the advantage in making it a bit thicker and changing its shape a bit to focus light better?

Once you have lens, the eye must flatten out a bit to give optimum focus. And what do you know, you have evolved a fish eye. Each step can be shown to have conveyed an advantage over the previous step. No step required any particular great leap, it was just a slight modification of the previous step. We even have examples of animals that use those incomplete intermediate steps to success.

First, I'm going to identify your basic presupposition. More complex systems of sight are in and of themselves more advantagous than simpler ones. This is an arbitrary assumption, and only rational if you 1) further presume that all the various levels of eyesight and light perception merely represent various levels of evolution's success in creating optimum eyesight, and 2) ignore the fact that a highly complex or more powerful form of eyesight is only an advantage if I have the kind of system that needs it.

For instance, plants can sense light and react according to their needs or design. But what use would something like human eyesight be to a plant? Plants have no muscles. They aren't ambulatory and have no need to discern shapes and distances. So, no, human eyesight would not be better for a plant. Their simple kinds of sensors are better in their situations and perfectly suited to their needs. The same with all your supposed intermediary stages in the evolution of the eye.

I come at the phenomena with the presupposition of design, so the followig illustration has a one to one correspondence with what we observe in nature. You won't see it that way because, and I repeat, your presuppostion is different, but I'll answer that again later.

I work in the semiconductor industry. Some processes in the manufacture of our components require a vacuum to control the number and type of molecules interacting with the components being made. Various pumping systems were developed to create the kinds of vacuum needed. Some systems only need to be pumped to below 20 millitorr before the process gases are introduced. An oil-sealed rotary vane pump is perfectly suited to the task, so that is what I would choose when designing this particular vacuum system. Considerations such as conductance, throughput, pumping speed, etc. will determine the kind, size and shape of my roughing system (plumbing) and the speed of my pump. Rotary vane pumps come in many capacities. If the conductance of my roughing system is only 25 cfm, then I only need a pump with that pumping speed. If I put a faster pump on, say 50 cfm, I haven't gained anything. In fact, it would be a waste of resources. The pump may be able to pump at 50 cfm, but it's only receiving 25.

Other processes require the chamber to be evacuated to a level approaching that of space. A mechanical pump like I described above won't accomplish that level of vacuum, so I would probably choose a turbo-molecular pump or an oil diffusion pump or, if the process couldn't tolerate hydrocarbon contamination, a cryogenic sorption pump. These kinds of pumps have pumping speeds measured in the hundreds of liters per second, and can reach very high levels of vacuum in a relatively short amount of time.

But, again, whether one kind of pump is better than another depends on the needs of the system. That is the premise with which I and creation scientists come to nature. The systems were designed and are perfectly suited for the needs of a particular organism. In all your descriptions of existing, self-contained, independent and irreducibly complex systems of sight you only assume that they represent intermediate stages in the evolution of an eye.

Again, same evidence, different presumptions.

Same with your speculation about the evolution of wings.

You will say, "But the fact that your the systems in your foundry were man made can be established by scientific investigation, so they can't be used as an example." But you'd be missing the point. They can be used as examples of design. If you came to them with the naturalistic premises with which you approach biology, you could assume that simpler systems represent intermediary stages in the evolution of the turbo-molecuar pump. The only difference is your naturalistic assumptions about biology can't be tested.

You have another problem. The fact that all your intermediary stages of the eye coexist disqualifies them as being intermediary in the development of the eye at all.

Wrong. We know what a lot of the "junk" is. A few percent are made up of stretches of virus DNA that has been inserted into the genome through the years by retrovirii**.

**Here is an interesting consequence for you to explain to us if you return.

Answered in a previous post.

Humans and the other apes and primates share insertions that demonstrate their common ancestry.

Oops! You mean depending on one's presuppositions these, insertions may be shared and might demonstrate their common ancestry. But really, this is no different than saying that because humans and apes have similar physical features they have a common ancestry.

It's still the same old arbitrary presupposition that morphology indicates phylogeny (a nice little word I've picked up this weekend). I look at these similarities and see a common designer.

 

[UTEOTW]

"Can you name one naturalistic biologist from the 20th Century who has influenced our understanding of the physical universe as much as Einstein?"

I don't think biologists concern themselves much with physics or the universe. You have to go back to the 19th century to see Einstein's equivilent in biology and that would be Darwin. Both revolutionized their fields by proposing and popularizing new theories to explain their respective fields which have been since confirmed by many observations and which have formed the basis for decades of additional work. I think the closest 20th century analogy would be someone like Gould who by proposing puncutated equilibrium has updated the knowledge of biology and who has gained some notoriety in the process.

"Because, as I keep saying, to interpret what one sees in biology today as evidence of evolution one must come to it with the presupposition that what we see today evolved."

So you are saying the evolution has always been the dominant theory of biology and that there has never been a time when other ideas were accepted and observation led to the formulation of evolution?

I think you are also ignoring how well common descent explains our observations of biology and the lack of a competing theory that comes anywhere close to explaining the observations.

" Had he been forced to adopt the arbitrary assumption that gravity evolved, he would have been attempting to explain what he saw in those terms and it would have slowed him down immensely."

I think you are mixing definitions here. All change with time is not the same as biological evolution. Gravity is not a living organism with mutable DNA. But, since you mention it, do you think that it is slowing researchers today who are discovering that gravity, along with the strong, weak and electromagnetic forces, were once combined into a single force and that they each came into being as separate forces as the universe cooled?

"What you are probably not aware of is that to get the Big Bang out of GR, one must approach it with the arbitrary assumption of an unbounded universe, one with no edge or center."

I believe that the Big Bang solution of the equations were formulated while astronomers were still debating those issues.

"But, approach GR with the assumption that the universe is bounded, with an edge and a center, and GR puts the Earth in the center of the universe at the beginning of Creation."

Well if his theory requires the universe to be bounded then it is at odds with observations. Recent details of the anisotropy of the CMB shows that the universe is indeed unbounded.

http://imagine.gsfc.nasa.gov/docs/ask_astro/answers/031001b.html

Furthermore, this whole line of reasoning is a fallacious appeal to authority. Humphreys has no formal training in relativity to be considered a useful source on such information. Furthermore, I have never heard of any scientists trained in relativity that supports his conclusions while there are many that can be found to show the mistakes. Simply the result of someone trying to do work in an area in which they are not qualified.

If he thinks that his ideas are correct, then why have they not been sent to an appropriate technical journal for reveiw and publication? If he is worried about bias, he could always choose one of the theoretical journals to see if his solution is even valid without having to wory about whether it is right or not.

Here is a good critique of Humphreys by a Christian.

It has been shown in a number of articles that all three of these claims are manifestly false. In particular,
1) the Schwarzschild time coordinate has no physical significance at all for the behavior of physical clocks in a bounded universe, 2) the pattern of gravitational field and potential differences is manifestly identical for bounded and unbounded universes (this is sufficiently important and sufficiently simple that we will revisit it below) and physical clock behaviors are manifestly identical for both cases, and 3) the event horizon of a bounded universe has absolutely no effect on the passage of time on physical clocks in such a universe.

http://www.reasons.org/resources/apologetics/unravelling.shtml?main

 

[UTEOTW]

"Still, vestigal organs and atavisms are only labeled as such by presuppositions."

I think I have shown previously where it is more than presupposition. You only see atavisms that match what you would have expected ancestors to have had based on other, independent lines of evidence. The whale pelvis makes a good example of an anatomical vestige because it is very complex related to its simple function at this time yet it strongly resmebles a feature ( a real pelvis) of what other lines of evidence point to as an ancestor. The whale pseudogenes for an olfactory system is a good example of a genetic vestige because they are genes for a system which is not expressed and would not be useful to whales but which would have been expected to be present in what other lines of evidence point to as its ancestors.

"The 'tail' evidence was debunked long, long ago."

Except that your source has executed a perfect strawman argument by showing you an apple and calling it an orange. Before I continue, a picture maybe worth a thousand words. Look at this x-ray.

Does that to you look like "it's just a bit of skin and fat...not with a tail, but with a fatty tumor. It's just skin and a little fatty tissue"

What your source has done is to talk about a known condition called a pseudotail. Your source has ignored what is being talked about in my example which is known as a true human tail. A paper for you.

Dao, A. H. and Netsky, M. G. (1984) "Human tails and pseudotails." Human Pathology 15: 449-453.

A case of a tail in a 2-week-old infant is reported, and findings from a review of 33 previously reported cases of true tails and pseudotails are summarized. The true, or persistent, vestigial tail of humans arises from the most distal remnant of the embryonic tail. It contains adipose and connective tissue, central bundles of striated muscle, blood vessels, and nerves and is covered by skin. Bone, cartilage, notochord, and spinal cord are lacking. The true tail arises by retention of structures found normally in fetal development. It may be as long as 13 cm, can move and contract, and occurs twice as often in males as in females. A true tail is easily removed surgically, without residual effects. It is rarely familial. Pseudotails are varied lesions having in common a lumbosacral protrusion and a superficial resemblance to persistent vestigial tails. The most frequent cause of a pseudotail in a series of ten cases obtained from the literature was an anomalous prolongation of the coccygeal vertebrae. Additional lesions included two lipomas, and one each of teratoma, chondromegaly , glioma, and a thin, elongated parasitic fetus.

A few more papers that might interest you. Or not since they contradict your assertions.

Fara, M. (1977) "Coccygeal ('tail') projection with cartilage content." Acta Chir. Plast. 19: 50-55.

Bar-Maor, J. A., Kesner, K. M., and Kaftori, J. K. (1980) "Human tails." J Bone Joint Surg Br. 62-B: 508-510.

You should also know that the gene that forms tails in other mammals has been found in the human genome in psuedogene form. Just as one would expect based on common descent and the observation of human atavistic tails.

Katoh, M. (2002) "Molecular cloning and expression of mouse Wnt14, and structural comparison between mouse Wnt14-Wnt3a gene cluster and human WNT14-WNT3A gene cluster." Int J Mol Med 9 :221-227.

Glycoprotein WNTs play key roles in carcinogenesis and embryogenesis. Human WNT14 and WNT3A genes are clustered in human chromosome 1q42 region with an interval of about 58 kb. Here, mouse Wnt14 was isolated to compare the structure of human WNT14-WNT3A gene cluster with that of mouse Wnt14-Wnt3a gene cluster. Mouse Wnt14 showed 98.1% total-amino-acid identity with human WNT14, and 61.9% total-amino-acid identity with human WNT14B/WNT15. Mouse Wnt14 mRNA was expressed in adult brain, lung, skeletal muscle, heart, and 17-day embryo. Mouse Wnt14 and Wnt3a genes were clustered in head-to-head manner with an interval of about 16 kb. Exon-intron structures were well conserved between human WNT14-WNT3A gene cluster and mouse Wnt14-Wnt3a gene cluster. Capicua-related sequence and AK024248-related sequence were identified in the intergenic region of human Wnt14-Wnt3a gene cluster as well as in other human chromosomal loci, but not in that of mouse Wnt14-Wnt3a gene cluster. Capicua-related sequences were pseudogenes derived from Capicua gene on human chromosome 19q13. Capicua pseudogene and AK024248-related sequence were clustered in tail-to-tail manner with interval ranging from 2.2 to 11.0 kb. AK024248-related sequences in several human genome draft sequences were truncated in the 3'-portion compared with that in the intergenic region of human WNT14-WNT3A gene cluster. This is the first report on structural comparison of WNT gene clusters in human genome and in mouse genome.

 

[UTEOTW]

Just as your source used a bait and switch approach with the human atavistic tails, let me save you the time on searching for the whale legs. Here is what AIG has to say.

http://www.answersingenesis.org/creation/v20/i3/whale_leg.asp

The closest thing to the claim which launched our pursuit of this whole trail is where Slijper states, ‘Thus, at Ayukawa Whaling Station (Japan), a Sperm Whale was brought in in 1956, with a 5-inch tibia projecting into a 5½-inch “bump,” and a Russian factory ship in the Bering Sea had a similar experience in 1959.’ No photo is provided.

Ignoring for the moment the purely anecdotal nature of the evidence, what is it that is being claimed? Sperm whales are massive—up to about 19m (62 feet) long. A 14 cm (5.5 inch) ‘bump’ on its side would look like an almost unnoticeable pimple. Inside the bump is a piece of bone, some 12.5 cm (5 inches) ‘long.’ There is no evidence given of anything which could reasonably be called a ‘leg.’ Slijper calls the bone inside the ‘bump’ a ‘tibia.’ But we have already seen that it doesn’t take much for evolutionary believers to label abnormal pieces of bone in ways to fit their naturalistic religion.

Once again, a picture is worth a thousand words. This time of a femur, tibia, tarsus, and metatarsal.

There are plenty of documented cases of atavistic legs on whales.

Andrews, R. C. (1921) "A remarkable case of external hind limbs in a humpback whale." Amer. Mus. Novitates. No. 9.

Zembskii, V. A. and Berzin, A. A. (1961) "On the rare phenomenon of atavism in the sperm whale." Nauchnye Doklady Vysshei Shkoly. Series "Biologicheskie Nauki."

Nemoto, T. (1963) "New records of sperm whales with protruded rudimentary hind limbs." Sci. Rep. Whales Res. Inst. No. 17.

Ogawa, R. and Kamiya, T. A. (1957) "Case of the cachalot with protruded rudimentary hind limbs." Sci. Rep. Whales Res. Inst. No. 12.

Abel, O. (1908) "Die Morphologie der Huftbeinrudimente der Cetaceen." Denkschr. Math. Naturw. Klasse Kaiserl. Aka. Wiss. Vol. 81.

Berzin, A. A. (1972) The Sperm Whale. Pacific Scientific Research Institute of Fisheries and Oceanography. Israel Program for Scientific Translations, Jerusalem. Available from the U. S. Dept. of Commerce, national Technical Information Service. Springfield, VA.

Hall, B. K. (1984) "Developmental mechanisms underlying the formation of atavisms." Biol. Rev. 59: 89-124.

Sleptsov, M. M. (1939) "On the asymmetry of the skull of Odontoceti." Zoologicheskii Zhurnal 18: 3.

 

[UTEOTW]

"First, I'm going to identify your basic presupposition. More complex systems of sight are in and of themselves more advantagous than simpler ones."

Well, not exactly. The increasingly complex steps have an advantage in that they make for better eyesight but that may not be the whole story. For some niches, something less than the most complex eye may serve the animal well and an improvement to the eye may not improve the animals chances of survival beyond that.

"This is an arbitrary assumption, and only rational..."

Since it is not my assumption there is no need to address the strawman you build over the next several sentences.

"I come at the phenomena with the presupposition of design, so the followig illustration has a one to one correspondence with what we observe in nature."

So, could you please tell us in quantifiable terms how you would determine if something was the process of an intelligent design or the product of a natural selection type of design?

It is important to note that there are many examples that can be presented of suboptimal design. How about some on topic examples. One has already been mentioned. The whale's pelvis is much more complex than what its function would call for. For another, let's stick with the eye. In the mammal eye, the retina is inverted such that the light must pass through the network blood vessels and nerves. This also leaves a blind spot where the nerves and blood vessels pass through the retina. Cephalopods avoid this problem by arranging the vessels and nerves below the retina. Why would an intelligent designer not use the same optimized design for both? Why give one eye a particular advantage and not the other?

You can also answer the earlier question about giving a quantifiable measure to tell if a mutation produces new "information" or not.

"Same with your speculation about the evolution of wings."

So, no response. You are willing to assert "speculation" and move on?

"They can be used as examples of design. If you came to them with the naturalistic premises with which you approach biology, you could assume that simpler systems represent intermediary stages in the evolution of the turbo-molecuar pump."

Bad example. I just go down to document control and review the design history of the various pumps. They are not a sexually reproducing entity with mutable DNA.

"You have another problem. The fact that all your intermediary stages of the eye coexist disqualifies them as being intermediary in the development of the eye at all."

That is a bold assertion that you will have to provide an explanation for!

Remember you initial assertion? "But more than that, try to imagine the evolution of the eye or the wing. Any intermediary stage of such would only serve as a disadvantage to the species. Can you imagine an intermediary stage?" Now that it has been shown that a logical progression can be proposed and that we can find examples of animals using many of those intermediates, you abandon your original claim and now assert that the presence of simpler eyes shows that they could not be useful intermediate stages.

"Answered in a previous post"

Maybe you can point me to the answer. Here is the problem again.

Humans and the other apes and primates share insertions that demonstrate their common ancestry. (The quote is "Therefore, an ERV locus shared by two or more species is descended from a single integration event and is proof that the species share a common ancestor into whose germ line the original integration took place." - "Constructing primate phylogenies from ancient retrovirus sequences," Welkin E. Johnson and John M. Coffin, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, Vol. 96, Issue 18, 10254-10260, August 31, 1999.) In a young earth hypothesis, this is a major problem. You would have to assume that the humans and all the "kinds" (whatever that may be) of primates and apes were infected by the same combination of virii, that they all inserted the exact same sequence in the same place, and that all these insertions were fixed into the various species.

Furthermore, since these insertions are common between essentially all humans, in a young earth they all must have taken place in the (about) ten generations between the creation and the last common ancestor (Noah) and none have taken place since. Unlikely.

"Oops! You mean depending on one's presuppositions these, insertions may be shared and might demonstrate their common ancestry. But really, this is no different than saying that because humans and apes have similar physical features they have a common ancestry.

It's still the same old arbitrary presupposition that morphology indicates phylogeny (a nice little word I've picked up this weekend). I look at these similarities and see a common designer."

I have answered this assertion with two separate posts. You have yet to respond to these posts. Perhaps you can address what I have said previously on this issue before asserting the same statement again without a logical and factual basis.

http://www.baptistboard.com/ubb/ultimatebb.php/topic/3/3019/4.html#000047

http://www.baptistboard.com/ubb/ultimatebb.php/topic/3/3019/3.html#000042

 

[fish]

I went to Answers in Genesis and did a search for "hooves." Here is an interesting article on the subject:

http://www.answersingenesis.org/creation/v17/i4/horse.asp

I also agree that it does no good to attack Darwin (or anyone else) personally. The question of the validity of his theory remains whether or not he is a lunatic.

By the way, if you are looking for insanity in atheists, look at the last years of Nietzsche's life. Darwin can't touch him.

 

[Aaron]

So, no response. You are willing to assert "speculation" and move on?

Be patient. I'm answering each of your points in turn. If you would check the times and dates of each of my posts, you would see that there is quite some time between them (except the last two which is really one response posted in two parts).

Now that the work week has begun again there will be even more time between posts.

So, you can desist with the false accusations.

Haven't you ever had anyone investigate the information you provide? You have now. I just need time.

 

[fish]

You'll have to excuse me. I'm new here. I replied to something on the first page before I realized there were five pages. Sorry.

 

[Aaron]

http://www.baptistboard.com/cgi-bin/ultimatebb.cgi/topic/3/3019/3.html?#000039

In reply to the post linked above:

The evolution of birds as viewed by leading evolutionists, even when considering the flood of new evidence you cited in your post, lacks the continuity as you assert. It is summarized here:

http://www.answersingenesis.org/tj/v17/i1/bird.asp

There is also little consensus and a lot of conjecture.

‘I hasten to add that none of the known small theropods, including Deinonychus, Dromaeosaurus, Velociraptor, Unenlagia, nor Sinosauropteryx, Protarcheaeopteryx, nor Caudipteryx is itself relevant to the origin of birds; these are all Cretaceous fossils … and as such can at best represent only structural stages through which an avian ancestor may be hypothesized to have passed.’

Dodson, P., Origin of birds: the final solution? American Zoologist 40:505–506, 2000.

And that is all you've presented in your description of the evolution of the eye and the wing, stages through which they may have hypothetically passed, presuming it happened at all. But these stages far from being simple changes represent complete and complex systems.

But these two different aspects of flight can be shown to have evolved in concert with each other but for very different reasons. Only later were the traits combined into a new, useful feature, flight.

Combined? How? Could all theropods interbreed? And if so, and the combination produced a dinosaur capable of flight, where did the brainpower to operate such a useful feature come from?

But many of your colleagues disagree with you. Instead of being combined later, they believe they were combined prior to Caudipteryx. They consider Archaeopteryx to predate Caudipteryx, and it possessed feathers and powered flight. If the conclusions you draw are so obvious from the evidence you cite, how is it that most of your evolutionary colleagues disagree with you on this? A significant number doubt the descent of birds from theropods, and it seems the debate is going to get hotter:

http://www.msnbc.com/news/118914.asp

But you should also be able to see that there was benefit all along, contrary to your assertion.

But the problem here is that some misrepresent what can be shown to have happened by asking such questions as "What good is half an eye" or "What good is half a wing." By misrepresenting the way things happened, they ask questions which to you, on the surface, sound like reasonable questions/problems. But they sound as such only because they have no bearing on what happened here in reality.

What happened in reality! Are you serious? You mean what happened in your imaginations. So actually my questions are eminently valid, and "What good is half a wing," is an oversimplification of the query.

In considering the wing of the bat, look at the pic below,

Get me from the front foot of a rodent to this wing in a gradual series of useful changes.

An in your theropod example, you still have to get past the change that rendered their digits useless for grasping. Did the feathers take over at that exact moment and become useful for flight?

But the feathers. Yes, they're useful for warmth, but get me from a cold-blooded to a warm-blooded animal, and scales to feathers in a gradual series of advantagous stages.

They are at fault for knowingly asking dishonest questions though you must share some of the blame for not checking to see if the questions were valid before repeating them.

And you are to blame for presenting fancy for fact. "What happened in reality..." gimme a break!

My next post will jump ahead to your "tail" evidence, then I will take up where I left off here.

[ July 11, 2005, 05:02 AM: Message edited by: Aaron ]

 

[Aaron]

Originally posted by fish:
You'll have to excuse me. I'm new here. I replied to something on the first page before I realized there were five pages. Sorry.

Join in if you wish!

 

[UTEOTW]

"Be patient. I'm answering each of your points in turn. "

I apologize. I thought from your comment that you were through with that topic.

"It is summarized here:

http://www.answersingenesis.org/tj/v17/i1/bird.asp"

The main point of that summary seems to be that it could not have happened because many traits are asserted to have changed direction in their progression. The thing is, this is not a problem. Birds was not the goal of the path, survival was. There is no reason to suppose that the changes should all be steady and in a given direction. Now in the 19th century, many biologists made the mistake of assuming gradual, steady change. It seemed like a good idea at the time given the few fossils that they had access to. But as more fossils were found, it became obvious that change was rarely gradual and steady. Change often goes one way and then another. Some features will show long term stasis and then rapid change.

"There is also little consensus and a lot of conjecture. [snip quote from Dodson] "

The biggest problem at this point is that birds are somewhat difficult to fossilize. Many of the examples we have of intermediate stages are likely derived from the actual intermediate stages since many of them are currently known by essentially contemporary (to each other) examples. Therefore Caudipteryx is not likely to be directly ancestral to birds but the set of traits which it posses reflects that it is likely to share with the birds a common ancestor with the birds that was similar to Caudipteryx.

"And that is all you've presented in your description of the evolution of the eye and the wing, stages through which they may have hypothetically passed, presuming it happened at all. But these stages far from being simple changes represent complete and complex systems."

It must be stated again what my objective was. You stated "But more than that, try to imagine the evolution of the eye or the wing. Any intermediary stage of such would only serve as a disadvantage to the species. Can you imagine an intermediary stage?" What I have been attempting to do is to show that these intermediate stages can be hypothesized with useful intermediaries and that there are examples of animals that made use of the intermediate stages. This is sufficient to refute your assertion. The other thing to keep in mind is that these intermediate stages would by necessity "represent complete and complex systems." If they were not, they would not be useful and retained.

Yes, the proposed stages are speculative. Especially for soft tissue like the eye which would be unlikely to be preserved and to a similar extent, delicate bones such as birds posses, there will be a low chance of having a very detailed set of fossils that show all of the changes. But we can show a speculated series and we can support that speculation with examples of animals that actually use the intermediate stages. In the case of the wing, we can show changes to the forelimbs and the development of feathers even if most of our examples are derived from the true intermediates.

"Combined? How? Could all theropods interbreed?"

I see that I was not clear enough in my statement. Let me remedy that. The two sets of changes happened in the same lineages but for different reasons. The forelimb changes happened initially to enable better hunting skills. The feathers were likely a combination of heat retention and display. Only later were these different traits put to common use. But they were in the same lineages of animals.

"But many of your colleagues disagree with you. Instead of being combined later, they believe they were combined prior to Caudipteryx. They consider Archaeopteryx to predate Caudipteryx, and it possessed feathers and powered flight. If the conclusions you draw are so obvious from the evidence you cite, how is it that most of your evolutionary colleagues disagree with you on this? A significant number doubt the descent of birds from theropods, and it seems the debate is going to get hotter:"

As I stated above, currently most examples of intermediate traits are from examples that are likely derived from the actual intermediates. This does not lessen the importance of the traits that are preserved by these examples. You must also take into consideration that the most far out views on birds, a view held by few, is that birds did not evolve from theropod dinosaurs directly but that they both evolved from the same common ancestor. Not a huge difference there compared to the position you are attempting to advocate.

"http://www.msnbc.com/news/118914.asp"

This is out of date. Further study has shown it to be incomplete.

http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/cgi-bin/abstract/110490058/ABSTRACT

Fossil evidence documenting the evolutionary transition from theropod dinosaurs to birds indicates unambiguously that the digits of the wing of birds are digits 1, 2, and 3. However, some embryological evidence suggests that these digits are 2, 3, and 4. This apparent lack of correspondence has been described as the greatest challenge to the widely accepted theropod-bird link (Zhou 2004. Naturwissenschaften 91:455-471). Here we review the pertinent literature regarding the debate on the origin of birds and wing digital identity and the evidence in favor of a 1, 2, 3 identity of the wing digits. Recent molecular evidence shows that the expression of Hoxd12 and Hoxd13 in the developing wing supports the theropod-bird link. In the chicken foot and in the mouse hand and foot, digit 1 is the only digit to combine the expression of Hoxd13 with the absence of expression of Hoxd12. The same is observed in the anterior digit of the wing, suggesting it is a digit 1, as expected for a theropod. Nevertheless, Galis et al. (2005. J Exp Zool (Mol Dev Evol) in press), argue that Hoxd12 and Hoxd13 expression patterns in mutant limbs do not allow distinguishing the most anterior digit in the bird wing from digit 2. They also argue that constraints to the evolution of limb development support the 2, 3, 4 identity of the wing digits. However, the case put forward by Galis et al. is biased and flawed with regard to interpretation of mutant limbs, developmental mechanisms, stages observed, and the description of the evolutionary variation of limb development. Importantly, Galis et al. do not present evidence from wild-type limbs that counters the conclusions of Vargas and Fallon (2005. J Exp Zool (Mol Dev Evol) 304B(1):85-89), and fail to provide molecular evidence to specifically support the hypothesis that the wing digits are 2, 3, and 4. The expression of Hoxd12 and Hoxd13 in the developing wing is consistent with the hypothesis that birds are living dinosaurs; this view can lead to a greater understanding of the actual limits to the evolutionary variation of limb development.

Alexander O. Vargas, John F. Fallon, The digits of the wing of birds are 1, 2, and 3. a review, J. Exp. Zool. (Mol. Dev. Evol.) 304B:206-219, 2005.

"What happened in reality! Are you serious? You mean what happened in your imaginations. So actually my questions are eminently valid, and "What good is half a wing," is an oversimplification of the query."

I stand by my assertion as shown above. Hypothetical stages of half a wing or half an eye can be shown and can be shown to be useful. In addition, animals that use these halfway stages can be shown to make good use of them. The assertion is refuted.

"Get me from the front foot of a rodent to this wing in a gradual series of useful changes."

You are going through an exercise in moving the goalposts. First you say that the intermediate stages were not useful. So I show that they would be and give examples. Then you change tactics and complain that they cannot be proven to be actual examples of transitionals. Now you seem to abandon that and try to go down the same path with a different animal. I have given you a paper above which discusses one part of the evolution of bat flight. From my own speculation, the most likely answer likely is that bats started gliding with a flap of skin between the front and rear legs. Modification to the front arms, as discussed in the linked paper, eventually led to the animals we have today. Unfortunately, bats fossilize very poorly so there is not much to go on.

"An in your theropod example, you still have to get past the change that rendered their digits useless for grasping. Did the feathers take over at that exact moment and become useful for flight?"

Since many of the examples still have claws on their wings, it was a gradual transition. You seem to be laboring under the concept that it has to be a wing or an arm, that there cannot be a stage that has some functionality of both. Such examples show that this need not be the case.

"But the feathers. Yes, they're useful for warmth, but get me from a cold-blooded to a warm-blooded animal, and scales to feathers in a gradual series of advantagous stages."

More moving the goalposts. And it may not be revelent to the discussion since many dinosaurs may have been warm blooded themselves. One difference between reptiles and birds is the number of chambers in the heart. Both dinosaurs and crocodiles trace their ancestry back to the archosaurs. Crocodiles, unlike other reptiles, have a four chambered heart though the fourth chamber seems to be not too usfeful today. But this has led to speculation that the archosaurs may have been warm-blooded, at least partially, and may have passed this on to their descendants. Crocodiles and alligators reverted back to cold-blooded in that case as more suited to their lifestyle. We can explore this more fully if you wish, but it seems to be a tengent.

"And you are to blame for presenting fancy for fact. "What happened in reality..." gimme a break!"

I stand by my assertion. The intermediates can be shown to be possible and examples of animals that use these intermediates which you asserted would be useless can be given.

"My next post will jump ahead to your "tail" evidence, then I will take up where I left off here."

At the appropriate point, can you give a quantifiable definition for "information" that can be used to examine the mutations we were discussing and can you give a quantifiable definition of how to determine where something in nature was the poduct of intelligent or unintelligent design?

 

[UTEOTW]

Uh oh... I seem to have misplaced a code somewhere above. You'll have to look for thequotation marks to see what is quoted and which is response. Sorry about that.

"You'll have to excuse me. I'm new here. I replied to something on the first page before I realized there were five pages. Sorry."

Don't apologize. Join us. There are many interesting discussions going on here. We are trying to limit it to a handfull of topics: horses and whales and human tails and beneficial mutations and eyes and wings and retrovirii and maybe a few others I've missed.

Anyhow, I thinkI have done a fair job summarizing some of these topics and Aaron has done a good job of giving the normal responses and then some. Read through the whole thread. Google some things you are unfamiliar with. Ask some questions and let each of us provide an answer.

I have no illusions of changing anyone's mind. If I can get some of the most outrageous of the YE claims out of circulation among those that post here and help them distill their stuff down to things that make a bit more sense, then I have accomplished all that I think thatI can. But a thread like this should be great for lurkers. Read what both sides have to say. Challenge your notions. Learn more. It's fun.

"I also agree that it does no good to attack Darwin (or anyone else) personally. The question of the validity of his theory remains whether or not he is a lunatic. "

Great attitude. Humans are fallible. Let the facts fall out where they may.

[AIG link]

I have to leave in a minute or two but I want to skip donw to the numbered "problems in your link and see how many I can address.

"If it were true, you would expect to find the earliest horse fossils in the lowest rock strata. But you don't. In fact, bones of the supposed 'earliest' horses have been found at or near the surface. Sometimes they are found right next to modern horse fossils! O. C. Marsh commented on living horses with multiple toes, and said there were cases in the American Southwest where 'both fore and hind feet may each have two extra digits fairly developed, and all of nearly equal size, thus corresponding to the feet of the extinct Protohippus'."

Yes, these are atavistic toes and are evidence that supports evolution. If modern horses never had a three toed ancestor, why should they have genes for making two extra toes? You will find that such atavisms always produce traits that the ancestors, as determined by other means, had. If evolution were not true, you would expect to either see no atavisms or if they were present they would not produce only atavisms that match evolutionary assumptions.

" In National Geographic (January 1981, p. 74), there is a picture of the foot of a so-called early horse, Pliohippus, and one of the modern Equus that were found at the same volcanic site in Nebraska. The writer says: 'Dozens of hoofed species lived on the American plains.' Doesn't this suggest two different species, rather than the evolutionary progression of one?"

Look at the picture in your own link, about halfway down.

http://www.answersingenesis.org/creation/images/v17/i4/p16_horses.JPG

You will see that Pliohippus, rather than being an "early horse" was one of the last horse genera to evolve prior to the modern horses. It is right there on their own drawing. Furthermore, can you provide a scenario in which a lineage goes from three toes to one toe in which you would not have them both living together at some point?

"There is no one site in the world where the evolutionary succession of the horse can be seen. Rather, the fossil fragments have been gathered from several continents on the assumption of evolutionary progress, and then used to support the assumption. This is circular reasoning, and does not qualify as objective science."

There is no one site where you can dig up my ancestors either, yet here I am. The changes that lead to the horse took place over tens of millions of years. There is no reason to presuppose that all that change should have happened at one geographic location.

In addition, look at the this chart from a YE site.

http://www.biblicalcreation.org.uk/images/MacFadden.gif

You will see that all of the genera on the road to horses were found in North America. Only side branches were found elsewhere. So I find it a bit disenginuous to suggest that to get the series you had to combine fossils from multiple continents.

"he theory of horse evolution has very serious genetic problems to overcome. How do we explain the variations in the numbers of ribs and lumbar vertebrae within the imagined evolutionary progression?"

What is the explanation for why this is a problem? It does not seem to be very hard to change the number of ribs over a few million years.

"Finally, when evolutionists assume that the horse has grown progressively in size over millions of years, what they forget is that modern horses vary enormously in size."

But it is not just size. It is a whole host of traits. The number of molars changes. The leg bones become fused. The shape of the head changes. The shape of the teeth changes. The number of toes change. The pads on the feet are replaced as the toenails become hooves. The spine changes. And so on.

What do you know, I did have time to make a quick response. Join in if you wish, or at least lurk around.

 

[Aaron]

Now concerning your "tail" evidence.

A picture is NOT worth a thousand words, especially when the context isn't known.

A true tail in human is vestigial and never contains vertebrae in contrast to vertebrate animals....Microscopic examination of all true human showed skin covering a core of adipose tissue, collagen fibers and skeletal muscle fibers. No bone or cartilage has been documented.

True Tail in a Neonate Indian Pediatrics 1999; 36:712-713. [LINK TO ARTICLE]

Your photo and the info for the caption is dated 1980.

The true tail arises from the most distal remnant of the embryonic tail, contains adipose, connective, muscle, and nerve tissue, and is covered by skin.

The human tail and spinal dysraphism. Belzberg AJ, Myles ST, Trevenen CL. J Pediatr Surg. 1991 Oct;26(10):1243-5.

[LINK TO ARTICLE]

No mention of bone or cartilage, and again, note the copyright date.

A human tail is a rare congenital anomaly with a prominent lesion from the lumbosacrococcygeal region. According to Dao and Netzky human tails are classified into 'true tails' and 'pseudotails'. True tails comprise only mesenchymal tissue (adipose, connective, muscle, nerve tissue, blood vessels, and cutis). They are presumed to be remnants of the embryologic tail. All other lumbosacrococcygeal protrusions are summarized as pseudotails....We report a case of prenatal diagnosis of a human tail in association with omphalocele, hydrocephalus and antiphospholipid-antibody syndrome resulting in a severe fetal growth restriction. Due to cartilage content the appendage had to be classified as 'pseudotail'.

Prenatal Diagnosis of 'True Tail' with Cartilage Content? Frank Noack, Erich Reusche, Ulrich Gembruch. Fetal Diagnosis and Therapy. Vol. 18, No. 4, 2003

[LINK TO ARTICLE]

Your x-ray photo is misleading. C1, C2 and C3 are not in the "tail" portion of this deformity. In fact, the "tail" is not in the photo at all.

The tail was perfectly midline and protruded form the lower back as a soft appendage. The five normal sacral vertebrae are indicated in light blue and numbered; the three coccygeal tail vertebrae are indicated in light yellow. The entire coccyx (usually three or four tiny fused vertebrae) is normally the same size as the fifth sacral vertebrae.[/b]
[LINK TO ARTICLE]

C1, C2 and C3 are more likely, judging from the information, a deformed coccyx, as in another situation described below. My annotation is in brackets.

To date, more than 100 cases of human tails have been reported. However, reports of true human tails, which involve the coccygeal vertebrae, are rare. [Do not mistake "involve the coccygeal vertebrae" as meaning the tail contained the coccygeal vertebrae.] We recently encountered a patient with a true human tail which involved the coccygeal vertebrae and was accompanied by lumbar spinal lipoma and spina bifida. A four-year-old boy was brought to our clinic with complaints primarily of painful mass. The boy had no neurological abnormalities. Physically, a tail bone projected, slightly in the lumbar area, with a linear depression in the center. A hard tail bone was palpable subcutaneously. A soft mass was palpable in the lumbar region, which was accompanied by hemangioma on the superficial layer of the skin in this region. On X-ray films, the tail bone lacked the normal curvature and it projected linearly in the posterior direction. CT scans revealed spina bifida at the level below L2. MRI disclosed spina bifida (at the level below L2), spinal lipoma and a tethered cord. During surgery, the tail bone was first resected over a distance of one and a half vertebral bodies. The lumbar tumor, which continued into the spinal canal, was removed as completely as possible after incision of the dura mater. To free the tethered cord, the tensioned, hypertrophic filum terminale was dissected. Although the morphological diagnosis of this condition is easy, the high incidence of complication by other anomalies makes it essential to perform thorough preoperative examinations with CT and MRI.

[LINK TO ARTICLE]

The information in the second half of the caption for your photo is, judging from the what the most recent pediatric specialists are saying, dubious at best.

In this same study, the surgeons reported two other cases of an atavistic human tail, one with three tail vertebrae, one with five. All were benign, and only one was surgically "corrected" for cosmetic reasons

Again, "true" human "tails", "never contain vertebrae."

Gary Parker may have mistakenly asserted that there is never any muscle in a human "tail," but his point was, nevertheless, true. "It's not at all like the tail of a cat, dog, or monkey."

[ July 12, 2005, 12:31 AM: Message edited by: Aaron ]

 

[UTEOTW]

I think that if you will pay atttention to even the additional references you have dug up, you will see the answer.

"The five normal sacral vertebrae are indicated in light blue and numbered; the three coccygeal tail vertebrae are indicated in light yellow. The entire coccyx (usually three or four tiny fused vertebrae) is normally the same size as the fifth sacral vertebrae."

The three or four small, fused coccygeal vertebrae are the all the vestigal remains of a tail that most humans have. The atavisms are when these vertebrae for full size vertebrae. Despite what your refence may have said, the picture shows three fully formed such vertebae. References provide case of up to five fully formed and articulate vertebrae.

"No mention of bone or cartilage, and again, note the copyright date."

A later date does not ensure a complete literature search. One of the references (Bar-Maor et al.) talked about true tails with cartilage in addition to up to 5 vertebrae.

Another one of your references directly contradicts the claim of your first reference. "However, reports of true human tails, which involve the coccygeal vertebrae, are rare."

"Gary Parker may have mistakenly asserted that there is never any muscle in a human '"tail,' but his point was, nevertheless, true. 'It's not at all like the tail of a cat, dog, or monkey.'"

Except that not all vertebrate animals even have vertebrae in their tails, if you want to continue that disputable assertion. The primate Macaca sylvanus has a short tail lacking vertebrae.

 

[kendemyer]

I looked up the a journal abstract for a journal Talkorigins.org cited. Talkorigins.org likely made a mistake regarding the "tail/"tail gene" argument.

Please see:

Alleged human tails and alleged human "tail genes"
http://www.apologetics.org/cslewis/viewtopic.php?t=2279

 

[UTEOTW]

Where is the mistake? All that page does is show that the genes that would form a tail are much more complex than a single gene. A gene involved in forming the tail in other mammals was still found in humans even if it also takes other genes.

 

[kendemyer]

TO: UT

The probably mistake is clear to see.

Look at the thread again paying attention to this information in the aforementioned thread:

Detailing the human tail.

Dubrow TJ, Wackym PA, Lesavoy MA.

Division of Plastic Surgery, Harbor/UCLA Medical Center, Torrance.


There have been 23 true vestigial tails reported in the literature since 1884. A new case is described, and its magnetic resonance imaging and pathological features are presented. A review of the literature and analysis of the pathological characteristics reveal that the vestigial human tail may be associated with other abnormalities. Vestigial tails contain adipose and connective tissue, blood vessels, and nerves and are covered by skin. Bone, cartilage, notochord, and spinal cord elements are lacking. Tails are easily removed surgically without residual effects. Since 29% (7 of 24) of the reported tails have been associated with other malformations, careful clinical evaluation of these patients is recommended.

taken from: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=PubMed&list_uids=3284435&dopt=Abstract

[ July 12, 2005, 06:44 PM: Message edited by: kendemyer ]

 

[UTEOTW]

I don't think I ever alledged a certain number of true tails, so why the discussion about 23 or 100 or 67. I did quote an abstract from Dao which claims 33 so that is yet another number to throw out there.

Edit to add:

What happened to your post? Your first has been completely replaced.

Now what is the point of this edit? I am going to guess that is is to show that some were associated with other birth defects. But the majority were not and I fail to see how even the ones that were is relevent. Why would you not expect defects to be found together.

 

[kendemyer]

TO: UT

I edited my post.

Secondly, read the aforementioned thread. What Talkorigins.org said and what the journal abstract said is different. I am not going to retype everything if you are not particularly interested.

 

[UTEOTW]

We are on page six of a thread. I am not particularly interested in whether the number of documented cases is 23 or 24 or 33 or 67 or 100. All I care about is that it is a number bigger than zero. If T.O. miscounted, so be it. I did not claim 100 tails in my posts.

So far you have made a post that criticizes the allegation of humans and other mammals sharing a gene involved in making tails because other genes are involved, too. (Which does not really address why humans should have the gene under discussion.) And your other post copies part of an abstract that mentions that a fraction of the documented tails are also associated with other abnormalities. And as said, the birth of a baby with a tail is likely the result of some failure in the genes governing development. It seems reasonable that this might also lead to other abnormalities in some cases.

I have yet to see anything that tells us that the cases of true human tails are best explained as anything other than atavisms. And I have read the link thread in its entirety.