Bill Nye vs. Ken Ham

Changing the sequence theoretically substitutes one allele for the other at a particular gene locus, so all it changes is what that allele does to that gene, it varies that trait. If it's a gene for eye color, then the mutation may replace an allele for blue eyes with an allele for gray eyes. But in reality all that usually happens is that nothing changes anyway, OR it simply destroys the allele altogether. In any case this doesn't change anything in the structure of the genome. If it's a cat genome it remains a cat genome. Yeah, right, usually either producing no change at all or producing something destructive. Mutations have probably contributed more to junk DNA than anything else. In any case if they did produce something viable it would only be a change in a particular trait, not a change in the formula for the Species itself. ABE: (I know you think a Kind or Species is nothing but a collection of traits anyway, and I have to admit I couldn't identify the catness in the cat genome that keeps it from becoming something else, but I think the overall genome must characterize the Kind it belongs to. The point I've been trying to make is that all that changes is within the existing DNA strand, you aren't getting brand new genes for instance, you are only getting one form of a gene in the place of another, The processes that bring out new phenotypes reduce genetic diversity, whether that genetic diversity was built in, which I as a creationist believe it was, or produced by mutations. Either way the allele is either selected or rejected.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

I thought you were going to show me something that was found in an archaeological dig which supposedly would demonstrate that the transitional forms you expect to find there between ark animals and currently living animals aren't there. Wasn't that the topic?

OK, maybe I can fill in.I've done well over 100 archaeological excavations (NOT digs) and have never found any fauna that were transitional between ancient and modern forms. And I've worked on both mammoth and mastodon, but the evidence from those doesn't help you either.I have obtained a lot of radiocarbon dates that go past 4,350 years ago as well, all in an area that shows continuity of fauna, flora, depositional environment, and human genetics back past 10,000 years.You might try to deny that evidence, but the posts RAZD made supporting the radiocarbon method sent poor Mindspawn running for the tall grass a couple of months ago.Also, I have a lot of colleagues around the world. They aren't finding those transitional forms at the dates you claim either.Face it -- Your claims are just not supported by real-world evidence.

It's also amazing how entire reef system became detached and hydraulically sorted completely intact!Permian Reefs and Carbonate Complexes

I just want to know what everybody means who keeps saying such transitionals are not found. As I've been saying I wouldn't expect there to be such transitionals anyway, but I'd still like to know why you all expect them, what you think they'd look like, and what you DO find that ISN'T what you think they should look like.Thanks.

So may I ask a question here? Is the reef you are talking about the upper part of this picture where the rocks appear to be thrusting upward? If so why is it stratified if it is supposedly a reef that originally formed on that spot?

From what you claim, we should have transitional forms between the ark critters and the modern critters. They may have only been around for a few hundred years while undergoing a vastly speeded up evolution, such as from the primordial feline into all the modern genera and species.We do not see those forms in the relatively recent past, which is where modern humans are found. With the exception of a few late Pleistocene critters on their way to extinction (mammoths, mastodons, sloth, dire wolf, etc.) we see modern forms in archaeological excavations during the past 12,000+ years.But we do see transitional forms between ancient and modern species. We see good evidence for evolution of the horse, for example. And the whale. And decent evidence for all the other critters.The problem for your beliefs is these critters evolved at dates wholly incompatible with a young earth time frame, and with a radiation from the Middle East some 4,350 years ago. And, while you may not accept it, the dating evidence from a wide variety of different methods is in very close agreement.So, we don't have evidence of superevolution immediately after 4,350 years ago. We do have good evidence of normal evolution over the past few million or tens of millions of years for the modern forms. And the dating seems quite solid, being based on a large number of different methods which are all in quite remarkable agreement.

Well, as I've been arguing, I don't draw that conclusion myself. So you're expecting to find feline bones that aren't like today's felines but between them and what, fossil felines perhaps? (There's no way to know what the cats on the ark looked like). And you aren't finding them in your archaeological excavations? What ARE you finding then, any kind of felines at all or felines that aren't what you expect to find or what? I'm just trying to figure out what you're saying. You see modern felines then? That's what you are saying? You mean like today's house cats? Same size, like pets etc? Or what? You are still talking about archaeological excavations? There you find something you consider to be transitional between an ancient horse -- as determined by what, a fossil in some part of the geologic column? -- and a modern horse? And even whales? And what else? I don't want to get into the dating questions, I'd just like to know exactly WHAT you've found where and why it does or doesn't fit your expectations of what you SHOULD find if your idea of what a creationist believes is correct. Yeah yeah yeah but what I need is some specifics, not your interpretations.

The answer should be obvious to anyone who had read that message (Message 294). I used the term "species" in exactly the manner defined by that quote:

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A species is often defined as the largest group of organisms capable of interbreeding and producing fertile offspring.

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Why must we repeatedly explain the clearly obvious to you? Nobody cares what you want to accept or not. But using the standard definitions of words is an absolutely requirement in discussions, since doing otherwise will hinder or even destroy communication. The only reason I can see for deliberately misdefining words in a discussion would be either to disrupt communication or to deceive. Which one is your goal? Which is what indicates that speciation has occurred. Hence the term is correct.You may question whether or not speciation happens, but you may not misdefine the term. Recognizing the meaning of a term is not the same as believing in it nor accepting the concept it describes.And yet again we're having to explain the clearly obvious to you.

The standard definitions are tendentious and asking me to use them without question is asking for that confusion you say you want to avoid by using them.

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You STATED I have a lack of thought, and my conclusions are unreliable, you didn't show it. It's nothing more than an ad hominem remark.

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Which is a fact. And if you want evidence the fact that you ran away from defending your blog post with my criticisms unanswered rather helps to demonstrate the point.

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Secondly, I claimed Faith made some cogent points, which you incorrectly took to mean whatever you wanted it to mean. It did not mean what you thought it meant because you don't know what points I meant, given I never divulged the information.

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I guess that you can't remember your own post. You started with a quote which actually indicates that the evidence is a major problem for Faith's views and tried to suggest that it showed that YEC was on an equal level with mainstream science !

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I didn't try to obscure what you call, "false boasting", I actually shown that my reason to tell Faith I was cleverer than most here, was so that she could see that when I said she had cogent points, she could accept that judgement.

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So you boasted to try to give your claim credibility, thus making criticism of you a valid response. Then when DevilsAdvocate responded with such criticism your reply carefully omitted any evidence of your boasting and accused him of making an ad hominem argument.

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Another empty assertion. I haven't been "caught" making bad arguments, you have concluded I have made them, in your unworthy opinion. I don't accept your counter-offerings, because you didn't flesh them out, whereas I provided a whole blog entry.

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A very short blog entry. Which relied more on deception than reason. And which pointed to conclusions you wouldn't accept. And that's not including your past history here... I can dig up plenty of examples if you really want to get into it.

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Yet another empty, unproven assertion. Don't you notice the fact that you simply state these things?

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Some things are just that obvious.

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I've seen no evidence that you have any comprehension of what constitutes a good or bad argument given you seem to think that empty and opinionated assertions are sound syllogisms rather than sophistry.

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I guess that you must be ignoring my recent critique of your blog post which is exactly the sort of evidence you "haven't seen".

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That's the first statement you've made that has any backing. There you go, you can back up statements after all!!

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But of course I provided no more evidence for that than for statements you reject as unsupported assertions. That you like it is not "backing"

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I see that you have predictably used my post as an opportunistic assassination of Faith's character. This is transparent, and predictable of your style, you used to do this with Buzsaw if anyone chose to state something positive about his posts. It's a kind of indirect, passive agressive dig at the other Christian, you use my post to get to her.

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Actually it was serious suggestions for how Faith could be helped.
That you should dismiss them with such hostility rather shows how little interest you really have in helping Faith.

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People that argue well don't need to use such tactics so we can safely rule out your opinion as having any credence.

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You think that giving honest advice on how an opponent might be helped to become a better debater is a sign of weakness !But think about this Mikey. Is false pride really better than working to become good enough to have something worthy of pride ? Because that is where you are now, and I can only blame creationism for it. Faith is the same way. It's a sad waste of a human life.

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Something to do with the principles of hydraulic sorting.

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And Faith just demonstrates why my advice was good.No Faith, as others have pointed out, hydraulic sorting is not a viable explanation. Even at the simplest level, the fossils associated with each era have a huge range of shapes and sizes, quite the opposite if what we'd expect if hydraulic sorting were the issue.

Hydraulic sortibng plus original location of the original creature, plus level of the currents in the ocean that carried them etc etc etc.

Since I still work for a living and need to get to bed very soon for work, I don't have much time for this reply.To begin with, I was stunned by this: The number of generations have nothing to do with the amount of time? That has to be the most ludicrously wrong statement I have ever read you make. You obviously had not thought that one through.Each generation has a time value, which is how much time there is between generations. While that time will vary from species to species, it remains constant for a given species. Basically, it is how long it takes for one's offspring to themselves start to reproduce. Therefore, given the length of a generation and the number of generations that it takes for something to happen, you can calculate the amount of time that it takes for that something to happen. For example, if the generation time is 20 years and something takes 100 generations to happen, then that would take 20 100 years, which is 2000 years.That should have been instantly apparent even to you. You really need to start thinking. A variety is not the same thing as a species. You should not call a species a "variety" since that is very misleading. A variety is a botanical subspecies; the zoological term would be "race" or "subspecies". Two different species cannot interbreed and produce fertile offspring, whereas subspecies of the same species can interbreed and produce fertile offspring. Therefore, it is very important to distinguish between "species" and "variety" and to not confuse the two with each other as you do. Comparing dogs and cats. And establishing that there are a number of different species of cat that you say all originated through microevolution from some "basic cat kind". Of course, the "basic dog kind" also includes foxes, coyotes, and dingos, so I'm sure that reproductive barriers exist there as well.BTW, macroevolution is evolution at and above the species level. So you've been described and arguing for macroevolution being caused by microevolution taken over enough generations. If you doubt that that is what you have accomplished, here is what you just said: Microevolution over enough time -- remember, generations equals time -- becomes macroevolution. Well, of course that depends on the parent species in question and on its generation time. Let's consider two species: humans and dogs.When were dogs domesticated? We know that wolves were domesticated in prehistoric times, so dogs split off from wolves and stopped breeding with wolves some time before writing was invented. About 5000 to 6000 years ago? Dogs have been reproductively isolated from wolves in all that time and more. According to your reckoning, they should have lost their ability to interbreed with wolves and produce fertile offspring after the first 300 years, maybe 1000 years at the most. And yet, after 6000 years or more dogs and wolves are still interfertile. Why's that?People are worse. Spread out over the global with several separate populations that remained isolated from each other for several thousands of years. Did they become different from each other? Yeah, they developed different racial characteristics. Did they become significantly different from each other -- think of how different the descendants of the "basic cat kind" became? No, not even after several thousands of years, even though you say they should have within only one thousand years. Did they lose the ability to interbreed and produce fertile offspring? Nope, which they proved immediately upon making contact with other human populations (eg, Europeans and Africans arriving in the New World, British arriving in Australia). Why is that?IOW, when we observe the real world to put your assumption to the test, your assumptions fail that test.Way past my bedtime now.

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I just want to know what everybody means who keeps saying such transitionals are not found

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It seems pretty obvious to me. The animal remains found in archaeological digs aren't the transitionals we'd expect if your model were true.

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As I've been saying I wouldn't expect there to be such transitionals anyway, but I'd still like to know why you all expect them, what you think they'd look like, and what you DO find that ISN'T what you think they should look like.

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Well perhaps you should explain why you don't expect to find them, because they're a straightforward prediction of your idea of kinds radiating and rapidly evolving.Let's take a simplified version of your idea. A population of ark-cats splits off and eventually becomes the ancestors of modern lions.How does that happen ?If it happens by your version of evolution, where the non-lion traits get weeded out over a period of generations then anyone who observed the population would see them becoming progressively more lion-like. Any individual which could be seen to be lion-like but not a lion would be a candidate for a transitional, the more so since it should have characteristics particular to other cat species, not found in lions.In fact numerous transitionals should have existed in the period between the ark landing and the establishment of modern species, given your ideas. So it seems very odd that you are't expecting them to be found. Why not ?