User
Joined: Feb 2004
Posts: 718
Wisconsin
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How come the more I respond, the less Nitro responds, and the less I respond, the more Nitro responds. We need to work together. Quote:
Maybe you are the smartest of all, since you seem to see clearly what all scientists with training and experience miss.
Like I said. I don't think scientists are idiots. I think they've come to the wrong conclusion based on their own biases. That's a natural human tendancy. In general, that's about the best any evolutionists can accuse me of. Maybe some ignorance.
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that there are clear genetic relationships between humans, chimpanzees, and likely all other lifeforms.
Which is fine. No one disagrees with you. In fact, we all think it SHOULD be this way whether or not things were created. Like I said, chances are if an animal looks like another, it has some (if not most) DNA in common.
If I'm designing a series of airplane models, I'm going to come up with a basic formula that all airplanes need in order to do what they do, then I might create different models for different purposes. Some wings may be swept back, others may be longer, while some airplane bodies may be smaller or more aerodynamic depending on the purpose. However, when all is said and done, since they are meant to do similar things, they'll probably be 95% similar.
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This seems conclusive.
Conclusive that we have a lot of morphology in common with chimps or apes or whatever. While this COULD be a side effect of common evolution, it also COULD be a side effect of common design. So it goes either way. In this case it really just comes down to our own personal philosophical differences.
Like I've said many times, if a designer is pondering how to make animals fly, what else would he give them besides wings? If I'm creating all the different kinds of birds on the earth, I'm not going to give some of them beaver tails in place of wings and say, "Go forth and fly."
If they all have wings, wouldn't it seem logical that (evolution or not) they have DNA in common? Once you've gotten the form of a wing down, there's no reason for changing the underlying building blocks of the wing. Unless, in your infinite wisdom, you're really concerned that a few of your creations are going to invent some crazy idea that you didn't create them and that they created themselves through death, and you're really concerned about sticking it to them. Somehow, I don't think a creator would care to change his creation based on some theory that will come and go like a breeze in time.
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But all the other evidence gives more weight to the conclusion. The evidence from the fossil record seems very strong, with many transitional forms having been found since Darwin's day
There are transitional forms if you consider an animal that is a fully formed, complete animal a transition (to counter this you say all animals are transitions, which is kind of flimsy since all we ever see are animals producing the same animal, with dysgenic mutations in between). The duck billed platypus is a great transition between birds (sex chromosomes), mammals, reptiles (poison barbs and gate), and of course fish or other aquatic life forms (electroception). And yet, all of these features seem pretty untransitional since they all make the creature well adapted to its relatively unchanging environment. Is it possible that your way of classifying animals is flawed? There's no controversy of whether or not the duck billed platypus is the transitionary form of all these different classes.
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These can be certainly be considered "transitional" forms, and your arguments are insufficient to disprove this.
Your assumptions are insufficient to prove this. In order to prove that they're transitionary, you must prove that your evolutionary timeline is correct. Not that they share something in common.
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To get the meat of the thing, what about hominid fossils such as Homo Erectus? Can you deny that this species is related to modern humans?
No, I just don't think it was anything other than a human. The average skull capacity of the homo erectus (as extimated on fossil evidence) is still within the range of current human skull capacity. Aboriginals have smaller skulls than most non-aboriginals, maybe they're evolving into us. Even though we can interbreed (if such a term can be used between humans). Furthermore, skull capacity has been shown to have little effect (within small variations in humans) between intelligence, and its not synonymous with brain size.
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The riddle surrounds the robust physical characteristics of the Kow Swamp people that some experts suggest links them to earlier more ‘archaic’ humans such as Homo erectus found in Indonesia.
http://uninews.unimelb.edu.au/articleid_1255.html
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Archaic features were primarily concentrated on the mandibular body and on the cranium forward of the coronal suture. In particular a combination of receding frontal squama, massive supraorbital regions and a supraglabella fossae "preserving an almost unmodified eastern erectus form" (1972:319)
http://www-personal.une.edu.au/~pbrown3/KowS.html
Maybe these traits are a bit more flexible than you're willing to admit? Certainly if humans exhibit traits similar to erectus, and you yourself say that erectus wouldn't look that out of place with us today, then maybe its a human. Certainly its brain case isn't out of our range. Different diets may be able to explain that (I don't have scientific proof to back that up, but ockham's razor shaves off your explanation for me. If there's a chance that they didn't have to go through the long and complicated process of evolution, then why should they have?), but to assume it was evolution just stifles sceintific discovery. We should be researching all avenues of these discoveries (even if that means avenues that aren't very evolutionary), if we're to pursue true scientific ideals.
Of course, that's not what you're interested in, you just want to jump on the fact that this could prove we evolved. So, if we see humans with erectus traits, and we see erectus is within the limits of human traits, then tell me why I should be bothered to believe this is proof of evolution.
Although it is in a watered down fashion, most of these supposedly different traits are seen in humans today. Chances are if it looks like a human, and smells like a human, it is a human.
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To deny this is to posit that each species is entirely seperate from all others. Is then a lion completely divorced from a tiger?
No its not, since they can interbreed. Meaning they're actually the same species. In this case, this can be easily explained simply by saying that they descended from the same kind. A more generalized cat. Ask anyone who's done breeding experiments. You can get some amazing differences in characteristics by force breeding characteristics apart from each other. The the more you let these different 'species' interbreed the more you go back to the more general form you started with. Zeedonk, is another great example. Or a zorse for that matter. If humanity kept breeding between the races (instead of having a problem with finding mates outside of their own race) then we would return to a more generalized form suggesting that certain attributes may have been force bred by the environment (some believe this happened at babel) to split traits, but not ultimately destroy the ability to return to the original kind.
Humans can vary in characteristics and still be human.
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Yet according to your philosphy, they must be seperate and the lines unbroken from the beginning of time.
As I said above. Selective breeding (even natural) can force certain characteristics to disperse into different environments, and the original kind is witnessed by interbreeding. Ask any dog breeder if you don't believe me.
So no, these animals were probably not created in their present form. In fact, there were probably far fewer created kinds that split off via selective pressures to cause the animal to become something 'different'. Which would explain the wide variety of species on earth. This is what Darwin witnessed on the galapogos islands, and this is why speciation is essential to creationism. However, we know they aren't really all that different since we can interbreed them.
This still isn't evolution, since we're losing genetic variance.
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Why do only very simple and primitive forms seem to exist from the earliest ages, to be followed by more and more complex creatures in latter? Did creation happen again and again?
Ok, if the strata is such a reliable indicator of time, then explain to me how they date millions of years old strata? When you get that answer, explain to me how they date millions of years old (rock) fossils. Then we can get to talking about that.
Furthermore, this timeline conflicts with the erectus since we find traits disappearing in the strata (if it can be called a timeline) and then reappearing later in history. Does evolution usually yo-yo like that?
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Why do we not see God creating new species even now, under our very noses.
I don't believe he's created anything new since the beginning of creation. Speciation has occured to create 'new' animals, but since these are just genetic fractures of their originals, I wouldn't put it in the same category.
JCL, I would first like to address one thing within that website that will give Matt a better idea of the problem I have with the fossil record.
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It's the first time scientists have found a snake with a sacrum -- a bony feature supporting the pelvis -- he said. That feature was lost as snakes evolved from lizards, and since this is the only known snake that hasn't lost it, it must be the most primitive known, he said.
So in other words they can just slap a date on it that fits their decided timeline, and every time they find that fossil within a given strata, that strata MUST be that age....because they said so. Let's outline the circular reasoning here.
We think that snakes lost their sacrum during evolution. We know this because the earliest snakes are the only ones with the sacrum. They're the earliest known snakes because they still have their sacrums. No scientific thought put into it whatsoever.
I simply don't trust evidence that's supposedly millions of years old. If this is the logic we put behind it, then I don't believe there is any possibility of its accuracy.
Modern snakes that keep these nubs use it to sexually stimulate the female, and grasp during copulation, and also to fight. What about the past 'legs.'
That's the best example I can find. I cannot argue that it doesn't have legs. I don't have the forensic background to determine from internet pictures what the deal is. They're found in sedimentary rock, and in what CNN calls 'terrestial environments' which they don't describe in any detail. Sedimentary usually suggests water. However, since we can't observe this animal in its natural environment, I'm still skeptical. Number one, its hind limbs may have been useful (swimming or faster burrowing). I don't suppose anyone has been able to reproduce what the limb actually looks like based on the tiny splinter that comprises the 'leg.' However, it really doesn't need to be a leg, and even then it doesn't need to be a leg with the same intent as the legs we see on creature nowadays.
I like the quote, "Fossils will sing any tune you want to hear."
It may well be a dysgenic reptile, which is fine and still fits within the creationist model besides.
By the way, backtrailing further and using evolution as my model, let's assume that snakes did have fully formed legs meant for walking. What good does that do to an animal that crawls? Where is the transition from walking to crawling besides legs, because even with legs, snakes would not walk. These snakes with legs are really just a distraction from the fact that there is no true transition between walking lizards and crawling snakes. Unless you consider that they came out of the water, in which case hind limbs could be extremely useful, and assuming they were legs meant for walking is rather illogical.
And did they stand upright? Because I'm having a hard time imagining a snake with only two legs being of any good on land before it 'devolved' into a snake with useless legs. Where are the four legged snakes?
Furthermore, those limbs in that picture of a fossil look better suited, and positioned, to be used as propulsion in water. Which would explain why the majority of these fossils are found in sedimentary rock. I guess I really just don't see the resemblance to legs.
One final note about archaeopteryx, non-transitional birds were also known to have teeth back in the day. This bird (since it obviously is a bird) really bares little resemblance to a reptile. I know, I'm wrong because I disagree with people who want it to be a reptile/bird, but let's remember that these are the same people that ignored the fact that this animal was covered in feathers and paraded around drawings of a reptile with wings. Sounds like your side is the one that has a hard time understanding scientific evidence.
It has a backwards thumb for perching, and it could fly. If it looks like a bird, and smells like a bird (even if it has teeth) it probably is a bird.
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but deny the possibility of large mutations.
Let me put it this way. Before mutations even have the chance to pile up, they're going to be selected out of the population. If we add a small change to a sequence that controls the wing growth, it could completely 'turn off' wings without completely losing the wing data. Great, now let's say we start to rewrite the eyes. If we need to do this in, for the sake of the example, a sequence of 30 different mutations. It might be safe to assume that by the 15th mutation, the genes will be coded for something so arbitrarily useless for the creature, or harmful that the mutations will never finish their work. You seem to think that if we randomly cause small enough changes to certain sequences, we can write data that makes sense. What does the creature do in the meantime while its living with data that doesn't make sense?
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The reason you give is that selection and small mutations can be directly observed, while large mutations can not be directly observed in our life time.
That's not what I said. Small mutations, as observed, will never lead to large mutations that are beneficial. If such beneficial mutations do exist (without losing data which is in the wrong direction) then the intermediate steps must not be selected out. Sometimes they aren't. For instance, when sickle cell anemia (a generally debilitating disease) prevents the mutation from being selected out. At least, until it enters an area where there is no malaria. In which case, GASP, its selected out or just sexed out.
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This can add information to the DNA, or remove it. Both is possible. Only the outcome decides whether it's a good mutation or a bad one.
So as the creature is waiting for the data for wings, its also waiting for the data to grow lighter bones, and the data to switch lungs to ones more useful for flying, and the data to behave differently with these new additions. In the meanwhile, these apparently intermediate mutations are causing disorder that will supposedly end in order. What is the creature doing in the meantime? Waiting millions of years, as a jumbled confused mess, for the mutations to finish their work or at least get to a useful intermediate? Well I don't think that between these useful intermediates, the creature is going to 'take off' genetically.
I'm not describing very well what I mean, but I'm also very tired and sick of typing right now. So I'll have to maybe explain better what I mean at another time.
"The task force finds that...the unborn child is a whole human being from the moment of fertilization, that all abortions terminate the life of a human being, and that the unborn child is a separate human patient under the care of modern medicine."
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